“It has been all compensation to me,” he said, after a moment. “You have been a good daughter to me, Rosalie.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Good fathers think they have good daughters,” she answered, choking back a sob.
He closed the book and let it lie upon the coverlet. “I will sleep now,” he said, and turned on his side. She arranged his pillow, and adjusted the bedclothes to his comfort.
“Good-night,” he said, as, with a faint hand, he drew her head down and kissed her. “Good girl! Goodnight!”
She patted his hand. “It is not night yet, father.”
He was already half asleep. “Good-night!” he said again, and fell into a deep sleep.
She sat down by the window, in her hand the book he had laid down. A hundred thoughts were busy in her brain—of her father; of the woman who had just left; of her lover over the hills. The woman’s voice came to her again—a far-off mockery. She opened the book mechanically and turned over the pages. Presently her eyes were riveted to a page. On it was written the word Kathleen.
For a moment she sat transfixed. The word Kathleen and the haunting voice became one, and her mind ran back to the day when she had said to Charley: “Who is Kathleen?”
She sprang to her feet. What should she do? Follow the woman? Find out who and what she was? Go to the young surgeon who had accompanied them, ask him who she was, and so learn the clue to the mystery concerning her lover?
In the midst of her confusion she became sharply conscious of two things: the approach of Mrs. Flynn, and her father’s heavy breathing. Dropping the book, she leaned over her father’s bed and looked closely at him. Then she turned to the frightened and anxious Mrs. Flynn.