"Because it is—father," the girl replied, feelingly "—because he's the grandest, noblest, truest man who ever lived; because he loves you, Eleanor; and because he believes in you as he believes in himself."
"If I did not know of this belief in me, Alice dear, and was not so jealous of it, perhaps I should not fear to bring the matter to the test. But, of course, you are right. He must know the whole story, and he must know it from me. I only hope that the opportunity may offer itself naturally for me to tell him, under such conditions as will make it appear less incredible than it does just now."
"It doesn't seem to me that that ought to enter into it at all," Alice continued, quietly. "Even if you knew that it would destroy this belief, you could do nothing else than tell him, could you, Eleanor? There could be nothing good come from anything kept from father."
Eleanor felt reproached by the faith which the girl exhibited. "I have done it to spare him," she urged. "If there had been anything in the experience of which I need feel ashamed, I should have felt it necessary to let him know it before we were married. I thought it all over then, and decided it was wiser not to bring the matter up. It was weak and cowardly not to do it, I can see that now, but at the time I thought I was acting for the best."
"If father were to tell you something about his life which seemed incredible, and which might be misinterpreted into something dishonorable to him, would you believe his version of it?"
"Implicitly," Eleanor replied, with much feeling.
"Then do you think he is less loving or less tender or has less faith than you, Eleanor?"
"Not that, dear," Eleanor replied; "but he is a man, and a man's standpoint is essentially different from a woman's."
"I never think of him as a man," the girl replied, simply. "He is so far above and beyond any man I have ever known that I have never thought of him as only that."