The man waited with wonderful patience.
“Oh, don’t—don’t make me!” she cried.
“Yes, I must.”
And at last her answer came in the faintest of whispers.
“I—I—father is—is only my legal father. He was away three years. I was born three days before he returned.”
“Well, well.” Tresler sat quite still for a moment while the simple girl sat cowering under the weight of her mother’s shame. Then he suddenly reached out and caught her in his arms. “Why, Danny,” he cried, pressing her to him, “I never felt so happy over anything in my life as the fact that Julian Marbolt is not your father.”
“But the shame of it!” cried the girl, imagining that her lover had not fully understood.
“Shame? Shame?” he cried, holding her still tighter in his arms. “Never let me hear that word on your lips again. You are the truest, sweetest, simplest child in the world. You are mine, Danny. My very own. And I tell you right here that I’ve won you and will hold you to my last dying day.”
Now she was kneeling beside him with her face pillowed on his breast, sobbing in the joy of her relief and happiness. And Tresler kissed her softly, pressing his cheek many times against the silky curls that wreathed about her head. Then, after a while, he sat looking out of the window with a hard, unyielding stare. Weak as he was, he was ready to do battle with all his might for this child nestling so trustfully in his arms.