“There comes Virgie,” said her mother, starting up. “I must go to prepare her for her meeting with you.”
“How much does she know?” Sir William asked, paling a trifle.
“Dear Will, she does not yet even know her own name, nor who her father is. I could not tell her, although I had promised to do so soon,” Virgie explained, with quivering lips.
The baronet bent and touched them softly.
“I am glad, my beloved, that you have not told her; the shock will not be so severe now. Go, dear, but send her to me as quickly as possible, for my heart yearns for her. I know now why her presence affected me so strangely the other evening.”
He released her, and she glided from the room to meet her daughter just outside the door; another moment and she would have entered.
“Mamma, what is it?” the young girl exclaimed, as she read in her expressive face something of the great change that had come to her during the last hour.
“Come with me, dear; I have something to tell you,” her mother said, and she slipped her arm about her waist and drew her into a small room opposite.
In as few words as possible she told her all that had occurred, and the name of her father—the name which she had so long withheld from her.
“Sir William Heath, Rupert’s guardian, my father!” said the bewildered girl, looking utterly dazed by the startling information.