"A gentleman, papa!" exclaimed Miss Paget, with considerable surprise; "I thought that you had sent for me because you were ill and depressed and lonely."
"Well, yes, Diana, I certainly am ill; and I suppose it is scarcely unnatural that a father should wish to see his only daughter."
Diana was silent. A father's wish to see his daughter was indeed natural and common; but that Captain Paget, who in no period of his daughter's life had evinced for her the common affection of paternity, should be seized all of a sudden with a yearning for her society, was somewhat singular. But Diana's nature had been ennobled and fortified by the mental struggle and the impalpable sacrifice of the last few months, and she was in nowise disposed to repel any affectionate feeling of her father's even at this eleventh hour.
"He tells us the eleventh hour is not too late," she thought. "If it is not too late in the sight of that Divine Judge, shall it be thought too late by an erring creature like me?"
After a few minutes of thoughtful silence, she knelt down by her father's chair and kissed him.
"My dear father," she murmured softly, "believe me, I am very pleased to think you should wish to see me. I will come to you whenever you like to send for me. I am glad not to be a burden to you; but I should wish to be a comfort when I can."
The Captain shed his stock tear. It signified something nearer akin to real emotion than usual.
"My dear girl," he said, "this is very pleasing, very pleasing indeed. The day may come—I cannot just now say when—and events may arise—which—the nature of which I am not yet in a position to indicate to you—but the barren fig-tree may not be always fruitless. In its old age the withered trunk may put forth fresh branches. We will say no more of this, my love; and I will only remark that you may not go unrequited for any affection bestowed on your poor old father."
Diana smiled, and this time it was a pensive rather than a bitter smile. She had often heard her father talk like this before. She had often heard these oracular hints of some grand event looming mighty in the immediate future; but she had never seen the vague prophecy accomplished. Always a schemer, and always alternating between the boastful confidence of hope and the peevish bewailings of despair, the Captain had built his castle to-day to sit among its ruins to-morrow, ever since she had known him.
So she set little value on his hopeful talk of this evening, but was content to see him in good spirits. He contemplated her admiringly as she knelt by his easy-chair, and smoothed the shining coils of her dark hair with a gentle hand, as he looked downward at the thoughtful face—proud and grave, but not ungentle.