"No, dear; no one has ever known anything except as I told you—that he was an old acquaintance whom I would not allow to be taken to a hospital."
"Have you never heard from him since he went away?"
"Yes; several months after he opened his studio—I think it must have been just before he went abroad again—he wrote me a brief letter, and inclosed a liberal check to cover the expenses of his illness, he said," Helen explained. "Now and then," she continued, "I have seen a newspaper notice commenting favorably upon certain pictures he had painted, and I have rejoiced in his success. This afternoon I received a package from him——"
"Oh!"
"Here it is, with the letter accompanying it. Read it, dear, and then it will rest with you to say what shall be done regarding the matter of business to which he refers."
Helen laid the missive on Dorothy's lap as she concluded.
"How wonderful!" breathed the young wife, as she seized and unfolded it with eager hands.
Tears rained over her cheeks, as she read; but she dashed them impatiently away and devoured the pages to the end.
"Oh, what a transformation! And isn't it beautiful to read between the lines and realize all that it means?" she cried, a note of exultation in her tremulous tones. "He loves me still! he wants to see me! And—we should accept this money," she went on thoughtfully; "don't you think so? It would be unfair, unkind, to refuse it, when conscience has prompted him to make this restitution; unless, mamma, dear, you shrink from receiving it and from meeting——"
"Dorothy," Helen hurriedly interrupted, "it shall be as you say; if your heart yearns for your father——"