"Yes," she said, sadly, "I know it all. My mother told me only because I demanded the truth. She would have preferred to keep some things from me, for your sake as well as mine, but I could not be satisfied with any partial disclosure."
"How you must hate me!" the man burst forth, while great drops of agony gathered about his mouth.
He had never believed that a human being could suffer as he suffered at that moment, in knowing that by his own vileness he had forever barred himself outside the affections of this lovely girl, toward whom he had always—since the first hour of their meeting—been strangely attracted, and whose love and respect, now that he knew she was his own child, seemed the most priceless boons that earth could hold for him.
At first Edith could make no reply to his passionate outburst.
"No," she said, at last, and lifting a regretful look to him, "I hope that there is not an atom of 'hate' in my heart toward any human being, especially toward any one who might experience an honest, though late, repentance for misdeeds."
"Ah! thank you; then have you not some word of comfort—some message of peace for me?" tremulously pleaded the once haughty, self-sufficient man, while he half extended his hands toward her, in a gesture of entreaty.
Her lips quivered, and tears sprang involuntarily to her eyes, while it was only after a prolonged effort that she was able to respond.
"Yes," she said, at last, a solemn sweetness in her unsteady tones, "the Lord lift up His countenance upon thee and give thee peace."
She often wondered afterward how it happened that those words of blessing, once uttered by a patriarch of old, should have slipped almost unconsciously from her lips.
She did not even wait to note their effect upon her companion, but, gliding swiftly past him, went on her way.