‘If I did I should believe that your mother was an angel, and that you inherited her disposition.’
‘My poor father,’ said Laura, with something between a sigh and a shudder. ‘He was once a gentleman.’
‘No doubt, love. There is no saying how low a man may descend when he once takes to travelling down-hill.’
‘If he had not been a gentleman my adopted father could never have been his friend,’ mused Laura. ‘It would not have been possible for Jasper Treverton to associate with anything base.’
‘No, love. And now tell me, when first your father presented himself to you, was not his revelation a great surprise, a shock to your feelings?’
‘It was indeed.’
‘Tell me, dear, how it happened. Tell me all the circumstances, if it does not pain you.’
‘No, dear. It pained me for you to know that my father had fallen so low, but now that you know the worst, I feel easier in my mind. It is a relief to me to be able to speak of him freely. Remember, Jack, he had bound me solemnly to secrecy. I would not break my promise, even to you.’
‘I understand all, dear.’
‘The first time I saw my father,’ Laura began falteringly, as if even to speak of him by that sacred name were painful to her, ‘it was summer time, a lovely August evening, and I had strolled out after dinner into the orchard. You know the gate that opens from the orchard into the field. I saw a man standing outside it smoking, with his arms resting on the top of the gate. Seeing a stranger there, I turned away to avoid him, but before I had gone three steps he stopped me. “Miss Malcolm, for God’s sake let me speak to you,” he said. “I am an old friend whom you must remember.” I went up to him and looked him full in the face; for there was such earnestness in his manner that it never occurred to me that he might be an impostor. “Indeed, I do not remember you,” I said. “When have I ever seen you?” Then he called me by my Christian name. “Laura,” he said, “you were six years old when Mr. Treverton brought you here. Have you quite forgotten the life that went before that time?”’