“Now, my dear,” he said earnestly, “you came here feeling pretty bad about things, and maybe I don’t blame you.  But there isn’t the sort of thing waiting on you you’re guessing.  Before we get to the real business I just want to tell you the things in my mind.  Of course, as you say, you’re a ‘kid’ yet—­a school-kid, eh?  That’s all right.  But I know you can get a grip of things that many much older girls could never hope to.  That’s why I want to tell you the things I’m going to.  Now you’ve worked it out in your mind that your stepfather is just a heartless, selfish creature who has no sort of use for you, and just wants to forget your existence.  He married your mother, but had no idea of taking on her burdens—­that’s you.  It isn’t so.  It wasn’t so.  I know, because this man is my friend, and I know all there is to know about him.  The whole thing has been deplorable.  You’ve been the victim of circumstances that I may not explain even to you.  But I promise you this, your stepfather is not the man to have desired to cut you out of your mother’s life.”

“Who did then?  Mother?”

The girl’s beautiful face flushed under her stirring emotions.  The man shook his head.

“Circumstances.  Yes, those circumstances I told you of.  Those circumstances I can’t explain.”  Charles Nisson picked up a typescript and held it out to the child.

“I want you to take this.  It’s not the deed, but a true copy.  I want you to read it over and think about it, and when you get back to Marypoint, and feel like talking to those teachers you trust there, you can tell them what it contains, and hear what they have to say about it, and see if they won’t think better of your stepfather than you do.  You needn’t read it now,” as the girl turned the pages and glanced down the confusion of legal phraseology.  “I’m going to tell you what it contains in plain words.  But I want you to have it, and read it, and think over it, because I want you to try and get a real understanding of the man whose signature is set to the original deed.”

“Yes,” he went on, meditatively, and in a tone of real regret.  “I’d be pretty glad to have you think better of him.  I think just now he needs the kind thought of anyone who belongs to him.  He’s in pretty bad trouble—­someways.”

The girl looked up.  A curious anxiety was shining in her eyes.

“Trouble?” she demanded.  “You mean he’s done wrong?  What d’you mean?  What sort of—­trouble?”

The man shook his head.

“No.  It’s not that.  It’s—­your mother.  You know, Nancy, he loved your mother in a way that leaves a good man broken to pieces when he loses the object of his love.  Every good thought he ever had was bound up in your mother.  And your mother was his strong support, and literally his guiding star.  You’ve lost your mother.  You know how you felt.  Well, I can’t tell you, but think, try and think what it would be if you’d lost just every hope in life, too—­the same as he has.”