“O father!”
“’Tis true, my child! You know how carefully I’ve brought you up, how tenderly I’ve cherished, how dearly I love you!”
“O father!”
“Yes, Blanche; you’ve been to me all your mother was; the only thing on earth I had to care for, or who cared for me. And this to arise—to blight all my fond expectations—I could not have believed it?”
The young girl’s bosom rose and fell in convulsive undulations, while big tear-drops ran coursing down her cheeks, like a spring shower from the blue canopy of heaven.
“Father, forgive me! You will forgive me!” were the words to which she gave utterance—not in continued speech, but interrupted by spasmodic sobbing.
“Tell me,” said he, without responding to the passionate appeal. “There is something I wish to know—something more. Did you speak to—to Captain Maynard—last night, after—”
“After when, papa?”
“After parting from him outside, under the tree?”
“No, father, I did not.”