"Is your father still living?"
"Yes."
"And is his name William Robertson?"
Again she hesitated with her answer, but nodded assent. She cast a troubled look round as if she feared further questioning; then she took off her locket, opened it, and passed it across to Tom.
"That is my father," she said shyly.
It was evidently the work of an amateur, and represented the three-quarter face of an elderly, careworn man; two bright, deep-set eyes shone under a lofty forehead; the hair was white and smooth, the lips were firmly set and the expression of the mouth was as kindly as that of the eyes, which spoke plainly of hopes crushed and a life wasted. Tom was greatly moved. In the old man's countenance were depicted physical suffering and mental worry, yet he seemed to detect a certain likeness to it in the girl by his side, the same melancholy touch of resignation and the same spirit. He reverently closed the locket and gave it back to her ... he understood her trust in him.
"How he must have suffered!"
"He is not even fifty," she replied.
Tom made an involuntary gesture of surprise. The portrait represented him as a man of nearly seventy, one who had turned his back upon life.
"Victor Dreyel was much older," he observed thoughtfully, "but he, too, had that same expression of hopeless resignation."