“That you know already.”
“Yes, I know it; but I do not know what you imagine. I may be able to show you yet that you are too harsh with me.”
After an interval of silence she answered:
“Mr. Eden, I believe you have heard the story of my origin from Mr. Chance. I suppose that he knows what I came from. No doubt he thought it right to separate his wife from me for the same reason that made you think that you could buy me with money, just as you could buy anything else you might wish to have. You would not have made such a proposal to one in your own class, though she might be an orphan and friendless and obliged to work for her living.”
“You are altogether mistaken,” he returned warmly. “I know absolutely nothing of your origin, and if I had known all about it that would not have had the slightest effect. Gentle birth or not, I should have made the same proposal; and if you imagine that ladies do not often receive and accept such proposals, you know little of what goes on in the world. But you must not think for a moment that I ever tried to find out your history from Merton. I put one question to him about you, and one only. Let me tell you what it was, and the answer he gave me. I asked him where you came from, or what your people were, and gave him a reason for my question, which was that the surname of Affleck had a peculiar interest for me. There was nothing wrong in that, I think? He said that you were an orphan, that the lady you lived with, not liking your own name, gave you the name of Affleck, solely because it took her fancy, or was uncommon, not because you had any relations of that name.”
“He did not know, I suppose, that it was my mother's name,” said Fan.
But the moment she had spoken it flashed across her mind that by that incautious speech she had revealed the secret of her birth, and her face crimsoned with shame and confusion.
But the other did not notice it; and without raising his eyes from the ground he returned—“Your mother's name—what was her name?”
“Margaret Affleck,” she answered; and thinking that it was not too late to repair the mistake she had made, and preserve her secret, she added, “That was her maiden name, and when the lady I lived with heard it, she preferred to call me by it because she did not like my right name.”
“And what was your father's name?”