“Daughter!” gasped Allison, a feeling of utter despair at her heart, as John Hubbard gave utterance, in a tone of fiendish triumph, to that last word. “Do you mean to tell me that papa has an own daughter living?”
“Yes—Miss Anna Brewster, who is a young lady a few years your senior. A fine-looking girl she is, too—a brilliant brunette, resembling her mother, who must also have been a handsome woman when she was young,” John Hubbard responded, as he covertly watched his companion.
Allison sat silently thinking for several moments, but at last she looked up at the man, meeting his eyes with a steadfast look.
“In spite of all you say, I do not believe it,” she said, with a quiet positiveness. “If that woman was his wife, there might have been some good reason for his repudiation of her; but he never would have denied the child that was his own flesh and blood. He was too honorable not to wish to do what was right and honest, and he would certainly have made generous provision for her. No, I will not credit such a story.”
“Suppose I should show you the certificate of his marriage to this woman, also some letters which he wrote to her before their marriage?” questioned her companion, a light of evil triumph in his eyes.
“If you have such proofs, of course you will show them to me,” Allison haughtily returned. “You cannot suppose that I am going to take all that you have told me for granted, and yield my position and fortune without a struggle. Produce your evidence, if you have it; it is my right to demand it.”
“Very well; I will produce it,” said the man, with an ugly frown upon his brow; and, slipping his hand inside the breast pocket of his coat, he drew forth a large envelope and a small package of time-yellowed letters that were tied together with a faded blue ribbon.
Drawing a paper from the envelope, he unfolded and spread it out upon the table before Allison.
It was a marriage-certificate, dated more than twenty-four years previous.