"Lady Henry did wrong," he said, with emphasis. Then he asked, jealously, with a touch of his natural irascibility, "Who else has been in the secret?"
"Four people, at most--the Duchess, first of all. I couldn't help it," she pleaded. "I was so unhappy with Lady Henry."
"You should have come to me. It was my right."
"But"--she dropped her head--"you had made it a condition that I should not trouble you."
He was silenced; and once more he leaned against the mantel-piece and hid his face from her, till, by a secret impulse, both moved. She rose and approached him; he laid his hands on her arms. With his persistent instinct for the lovely or romantic he perceived, with sudden pleasure, the grave, poetic beauty of her face and delicate form. Emotion had softened away all that was harsh; a quivering charm hovered over the features. With a strange pride, and a sense of mystery, he recognized his daughter and his race.
"For my Rose's child," he said, gently, and, stooping, he kissed her on the brow. She broke out into weeping, leaning against his shoulder, while the old man comforted and soothed her.
XV
After the long conversation between herself and Lord Lackington which followed on the momentous confession of her identity, Julie spent a restless and weary evening, which passed into a restless and weary night. Was she oppressed by this stirring of old sorrows?--haunted afresh by her parents' fate?
Ah! Lord Lackington had no sooner left her than she sank motionless into her chair, and, with the tears excited by the memories of her mother still in her eyes, she gave herself up to a desperate and sombre brooding, of which Warkworth's visit of the afternoon was, in truth, the sole cause, the sole subject.