Again the wry smile.
"No doubt, when he heard of your mother's death, he felt many things; but if among them were any feelings of sorrow he kept them hid. He wouldn't go to you mother's funeral; he refused to see you."
"What a wicked man he must have been; I am sorry I am like him."
"There's the tragedy; because, you see, he doubted if you were his child." The girl said nothing; but there came into her face an eloquence which was beyond any form of words. The sight of it seemed to occasion him pain; he went hurrying on: "You were brought up by nurses. So far as I know the only time you ever saw him was when he took you to that Brittany convent, where he left you till the other day."
"And you say he was my father?"
"There again's the tragedy: he was. Your mother wasn't the wisest of women--few people are altogether wise--but she was not the kind of person he, in his haste, thought she was; in that sense, she was a true wife to him. In very truth, and very deed, if ever a child was her father's child, you are his. I never doubted it; not once; and now it is as if the finger of God had written the truth all over you. If he had only seen you, he would have seen God's finger--have known what a foolish man he'd been."
"But why did he never come to see me--or write to me--once?"
"He was, as I have said, a curious man; and having made up his mind finally, though on the most imperfect premises; he would have died rather than unmake it; indeed, he did die. But although, as I have told you, when your mother died he made no pretence at sorrow, her death, the whole tragedy of his marriage, changed the whole aspect of the world for him: he was never the same man again; his whole life was spoiled. He did many foolish things, and very few wise ones--he did nearly all the foolish things a man could do. He lost money; he made it; he lost it again. There were times when he had scarcely a shilling; there were others when he had thousands of pounds. Did he ever send you money?"
"Never; not so much as a franc. I believe that often he didn't pay my bills at the convent; I think that sometimes the Sisters were afraid that he never would pay."
"Those, I apprehend, were the times when he was without a shilling. As years went on, I have a theory that he began to be haunted--haunted by thoughts of what might have been. I believe that he grew to love your mother more and more."