"And now, Mr. Dale," resumed Hermia, presently, "I want you to tell me what the relationship is between Miss Pengarvon and myself--for that we are related in some way I feel as sure as that I am sitting here."
"You munna ask me, Miss Hermy," answered the old man with a long, slow shake of his head. "I darena answer any questions. My mistress bound me by an oath not to speak a word to a soul about--about the matter that is between her and me till she gives me leave to do so."
Hermia drew a little nearer to him, and took one of his gnarled and withered hands between her soft palms.
"At least you cannot refuse to tell me this," she said, her blue eyes luminous with a sort of yearning pathos. "You cannot refuse to tell me whether my father and mother are still living?"
Then, as the old man did not answer:
"Think, think what it must be not to know even as much as that," she added pleadingly. "In so far, I am worse off--Heaven help me!--than the meanest beggar's child that tramps the streets."
"Let the mistress blame me, I dunna care. She shall be told," muttered Barney, half-aloud. Then he cleared his voice, and squeezing one of the little hands that held his, he said, "My bonnie darling, I never knew your father--never even heard his name, and canna tell you aught about him. But your mother--ah! Your mother!" He paused, and Hermia saw a tear shining in the corner of either eye.
"Yes--what of her?" she asked, with a catching of her breath, for her heart but too truly presaged what she was about to be told.
"She died a few weeks after you were born."
Hermia dropped the old man's hand, and turning, bowed her head and covered her face with her hands. Silently she wept; Barney's tears brimmed over and trickled down his worn cheeks. In a little while he wiped them away with his cotton handkerchief, and rising, went softly out of the room. He found Clement outside. "Go in and comfort the poor child," he said. "She needs it sorely, and your own heart will teach you how best to do it."