"Then, why have you now told me, sir, if you intended to keep the secret from me?" asked Jennie, in a tone that caused the man to glance anxiously into her face, for the child, as he called her, seemed to have suddenly become a woman.
CHAPTER XXIII.
At first Vance Bernard made no reply to this direct question put by Jennie.
He had told her the secret, that she was not his child, that she was only his daughter and his wife's by adoption.
He seemed to feel better that this weight was off his mind for some reason, yet she had taken it so calmly, so coldly, where he had expected tears and regret, that he hardly knew what else to say.
It was not until she again put the question to him, as to why he had then told her the secret, that he answered:
"Well, your mother——"
"Not my mother, sir, except by adoption, though she has ever been good and kind to me. What is my real name, sir?"