Did he speak the truth? Did not her mother's shame and hers lie at his door?
"Do you accept my proposition?" he inquired, anxiously.
For a moment she was tempted to give him an angry passionate denial, to say bitterly:
"No, I will not have these things on sufferance that should be mine by right. I will not have your favor or your pity, you demon, who blasted my mother's life and mine! I could rather curse you!"
But on a sudden she remembered that her suspicions were merely suspicions. She had no proof that this noble-looking man, who seemed crushed by the weight of some inward sorrow, was her father. Perhaps she wronged him in her thoughts.
"I must give him the benefit of the doubt, since he saved my life," she thought, and put out a cold, little hand to him.
"I must perforce accept your kindness," she said, mournfully, "since I have not a friend to turn to in all the wide, wide world."
He crushed the slender fingers in his firm clasp.
"I will be your friend, always—remember that," he said.
Irene would have thanked him feebly, but the saloon door hastily unclosed, admitting Lilia and her faded, peevish-looking mother.