That day, after Doctor Bertrand went away, as Eva sat drooping in the small parlor with her far-off, dreamy gaze, the kind Aunt Susan suddenly appeared at the door, ushering in a tall, gray-haired, distinguished-looking stranger.
“A gentleman to see you, little Eva,” she said, rousing the dreamy girl with a gentle touch on her shoulder.
Clyde Somerville, quivering with emotion, went and stood before his unhappy daughter, saying in a broken voice:
“Little Eva!”
With a little tremulous start she lifted up her heavy eyes and met his tender, compassionate glance.
“Oh!” she cried, in swift, half-shamed recognition.
“You remember me?”
“Oh, yes—yes, sir. You were kind to me that day on the train when I ran away from the asylum to see poor gran’ther, who—who died, you know,” with a quick sob. “So—so there was no one to pay you when you went there, and—and you thought me a wretched little cheat. But you have seen that I advertised in the paper for you to send to Weston and get your money. But I am discharged, and I am penniless. Oh, I am ashamed to ask you to wait a little longer!”
He let the torrent of words flow on; he thought they would ease her overburdened heart. Then, as she paused with a sob of distress, he knelt by her side and took her cold little hands in his own with such infinite tenderness that she let him hold them, gazing at him in mute wonder as he answered:
“You owe me no money, little Eva, but you owe me years of love that I was defrauded of by your grandfather’s mistake. I am your forsaken father!”