His tone forbade denial. Zillah said not a word. Slowly she drew from her pocket those papers, heavy with fate, and, with a trembling hand, she gave them to the Earl. Scarcely had she done so than she repented. But it was too late. Beside, of what avail would it have been to have kept them? She herself had begun this conversation; she herself had sought for a revelation of this mystery. The end must come, whatever it might be.
"Oh, father!" she moaned, imploringly.
"What is it?" asked the Earl.
"You knew my dear papa all his life, did you not, from his boyhood?"
"Yes," said the Earl, mechanically, looking at the papers which Zillah had placed in his hand; "yes--from boyhood."
"And you loved and honored him?"
"Yes."
"Was there ever a time in which you lost sight of one another, or did not know all about one another?"
"Certainly. For twenty years we lost sight of one another completely. Why do you ask?"
"Did he ever live in London?" asked Zillah, despairingly.