"Pray do me the favour of meeting me for five minutes in the conservatory as soon as possible."
Ten minutes later Eleanor was there.
A faint blush suffused her face as she came towards Gerald, but it was easy to see that she had been crying. She took Gerald's extended hand frankly, and then, before she knew how it happened, he had possession of the other one also.
"I have heard everything," he said, "and I could not rest till I had seen you."
She did not answer for a moment, but her eyes flushed with tears, and Gerald felt her hands tremble within his like two frightened birds.
"It is a very strange story," she said, "and I feel at present that I cannot altogether realize it."
"It is indeed a strange story--far too strange for Kelvin to lend himself to unless he had satisfied himself that it was true."
"The hardest--the bitterest part is to discover that he whom I loved so dearly while he lived, and whose memory I have cherished so fondly since I lost him, was not my father--was nothing but my benefactor. It makes me feel as if there were no such thing as reality in the world, as if life itself were nothing more substantial than a dream." She sighed, and releasing her hands from Love's sweet custody, she went and sat down on a garden-chair, and Gerald seated himself close by her.
"Nothing can change my love for him, or cause it to diminish by one iota," she said. "If he was not my father in reality, he acted a father's part by me, and he was my father in the sight of Heaven. God bless him! God bless him for ever!" she said passionately, and then she burst into sobs.
Gerald thought it best to say nothing for a little while; but he took her hand and pressed it softly to his lips, and was not repulsed.