"My father—my mother—they are living?"
In spite of his effort at self-control Norton was pale and his voice strained. His answers to her pointed questions were given with his face turned from her searching gaze.
"Your mother is living," was the slow reply.
"And my father?"
His eyes were set in a fixed stare waiting for this question, as a prisoner in the dock for the sentence of a judge. His lips gave no answer for the moment and the girl went on eagerly:
"Through all the years that I've been alone, the one desperate yearning of my heart has been to know my father"—the lines of the full lips quivered—"I've always felt somehow that a mother who could give up her babe was hardly worth knowing. And so I've brooded over the idea of a father. I've hoped and dreamed and prayed that he might be living—that I might see and know him, win his love, and in its warmth and joy, its shelter and strength—never be lonely or afraid again——"
Her voice sank to a sob, and Norton, struggling to master his feelings, said:
"You have been lonely and afraid?"
"Utterly lonely! When other girls at school shouted for joy at the approach of vacation, the thought of home and loved ones, it brought to me only tears and heartache. Many a night I've laid awake for hours and sobbed because a girl had asked me about my father and mother. Lonely!—oh, dear Lord! And always I've dried my eyes with the thought that some day I might know my father and sob out on his breast all I've felt and suffered"—she paused, and looked at Norton through a mist of tears—"my father is not dead?"
The stillness was painful. The man could hear the tick of the little French clock on the mantel. How tired his soul was of lies! He couldn't lie to her in answer to this question. And so without lifting his head he said very softly: