“Yes, I know,” the daughter replied quietly.
“Tell me, then. I ought to know,” he demanded.
“There is just one right by which you can ask,” she began. “But if you refuse me this–by what other right can you ask? Oh, daddy, daddy,” she sobbed. “In my dreams I call you that. Did you ever hear that name, daddy, daddy–I want you–for my sake, to save this man, daddy.”
The Judge heard the words that for years had sounded in his heart. They cut deep into his being. But they found no quick.
“Well, daughter,” he answered, “as a father–as a father who will help you all he can–I ask, then, who is Kenyon Adams’s father?”
“Grant,” answered the girl simply.
“Then you are going to marry an illegitimate–”
“I shall marry a noble, pure-souled man, father.”
“But, Lila–Lila,” he rasped, “who is his mother?”
Then she shrank away from him. She shook her head sadly, and withdrew her hands from his forcibly as she cried: