“Do you feel better, ’m?” the landlady asked.  “Have you rested yourself?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The woman went away; then came another knock, and Mr. Woodstock entered the room.  He closed the door behind him, and drew near.  She had again started up, and did not move her eyes from his face.

“Have you any recollection of me?” Abraham asked, much embarrassed in her presence, his voice failing to be as gentle as he wished through his difficulty in commanding it.

Ida had recognised him at once.  He had undergone no change since that day when she saw him last in Milton Street, and at this moment it was much easier for her to concentrate her thoughts upon bygone things than to realise the present.

“You are Abraham Woodstock,” she said very coldly, the resentment associated with the thought of him being yet stronger than the dead habit which had but now oppressed her.

“Yes, I am.  And I am a friend of Osmond Waymark.  I should like to talk a little with you, if you’ll let me.”

The old man found it so hard to give expression to the feelings that possessed him.  Ida concluded at once that he came with some hostile purpose, and the name of Waymark was an incentive to her numbed faculties.

“How can you be a friend of Osmond Waymark?” she asked, with cold suspicion.

“Didn’t he ever mention my name to you?”

“Never.”

Waymark had in truth always kept silence with Ida about his occupations, though he had spoken so freely of them to Maud.  He could not easily have explained to himself why he had made this difference, though it had a significance.  Mr. Woodstock was almost at a loss how to proceed.  He coughed, and moved his foot uneasily.

“I have known him all his life, for all that,” he said.  “And it was through him I found you.”

“Found me?”

“It’ll seem very strange, what I have to tell you.—­You were a little girl when I saw you last, and you refused to come with me.  Had you any idea why I asked you?”

“I hadn’t then.”

“But you have thought of it since?”

Ida looked at him sternly, and turned her eyes away again.  The belief that he was her father had always increased the resentment with which she recalled his face.

“I am your grandfather,” Abraham said gravely.  “Your mother was my daughter.”

A change came over her countenance; she gazed at him with wonder.

“Who did you think I was?” he asked.

She hesitated for a moment, then, instead of replying, said: 

“You behaved cruelly to my poor mother.”

“I won’t deny it,” the old man returned, mastering his voice with difficulty.  “I ought to have been more patient with her.  But she refused to obey me, and I can’t help my nature.  I repented it when it was too late.”

Ida could not know what it cost him to utter these abrupt sentences.  He seemed harsh, even in confining his harshness.  She was as far from him as ever.