“Nonsense, Mildred! A warm-hearted child will take to any one near her own age who is kind to her. Why should this girl have been anything more than an orphan, whom your father adopted out of the generosity of his heart?”
“O, she was something more! There was a mystery. Did you ever see her, aunt? I don’t remember your coming to Parchment Street or to The Hook while she was with us.”
“No. I was away from England part of that year. I spent the autumn at Baden with my friends the Templemores.”
“Ah, then you knew nothing of the trouble Fay made in our home—most innocently? It is such a sad story, aunt. I can hardly bear to touch upon it, even to you, for it cast a shadow upon my father’s character. You know how I loved and honoured him, and how it must pain me to say one word that reflects upon him.”
“Yes, I know you loved him. You could not love him too well, Mildred. He was a good man—a large-hearted, large-minded man.”
“And yet that one act of his, bringing poor Fay into his home, brought unhappiness upon us all. My mother seemed set against her from the very first; and on her death-bed she told me that Fay was my father’s daughter. She gave me no proof—she told me nothing beyond that one cruel fact. Fay was the offspring of hidden sin. She told me this, and told me to remember it all my life. Do you think, aunt, she was justified in this accusation against my father?”
“How can I tell, Mildred?” Miss Fausset answered coldly. “My brother may have had secrets from me.”
“But did you never hear anything—any hint of this mystery? Did you never know anything about your brother’s life in the years before his marriage which would serve as a clue? He could hardly have cared for any one—been associated with any one—and you not hear something—”
“If you mean did I ever hear that my brother had a mistress, I can answer no,” replied Miss Fausset, in a very unsympathetic voice. “But men do not usually allow such things to be known to their sisters, especially to a younger sister, as I was by a good many years. He may have been—like other men. Few of them seem free from the stain of sin. But however that may have been, I know nothing about the matter.”
“And you do not know the secret of Fay’s parentage—you, my father’s only sister—his only surviving relation. Can you help me to find any one who knew more about his youth—any confidential friend—any one who can tell me whether that girl was really my sister?”