"I had a father, once, Mr. Digby,—" she said with a curious self- restraint that did not lack dignity.
How could he answer her? He did not find words. And instead, there came over him such a rush of tenderness in view of what was surely to fall upon the girl, in the present and in the future, that for a moment he was unmanned. To hide the corresponding rush of water to his eyes, Mr. Digby was fain to bow his face in the hand which rested on his knees. Neither the action nor the cause of it escaped Rotha's shrewdness and awakened sense of fear, but it silenced her at the same time; and it was not till a little interval had passed, though before Mr. Digby had lifted up his head, that the silence became intolerable to her. She heard the sea and saw the breakers no more, or only with a feeling of impatience.
"Well," she said at last, in a changed voice, hard, and dry,—"why don't you tell me what it is?" If she was impolite, she did not mean it, and her friend knew she did not mean it.
"I hardly can, Rotha," he answered sorrowfully.
"I know what you mean," she said, "but it isn't true. You think so, but it isn't true."
"What are you speaking of?"
"You know. I know what you mean; you are speaking of—mother!" The word came out with difficulty and only by stern determination. "It is not true, Mr. Digby."
"What is not true, Rotha?"
"You know. It is not true!" she repeated vehemently.
"But Rotha, my child, what if it were true?"