He saw her cheeks grow white with the ashy whiteness of a sudden shock.  Her eyes dilated with pain and fear, and a quick sigh escaped her, then she set her lips hard.

“I don’t believe it,” she said, adding with stronger emphasis—­“I won’t believe it!”

He patted the small hand that rested on his knee.

“You won’t?  Poor little girl, you must believe it!—­and more than that, you must be prepared for it.  Even a year’s none too much for all that has to be done,—­’twill almost take me that time to look the thing square in the face and give up the farm for good.”—­Here he paused with a kind of horror at his own words—­“Give up the farm!—­My God!  And for ever!  How strange it seems!”

The tumult in her mind found sudden speech.

“Dad, dear!  Dad!  It isn’t true!  Don’t think it!  Don’t mind what the doctor says.  He’s wrong—­I’m sure he’s wrong!  You’ll live for many and many a happy year yet—­oh yes, Dad, you will!  I’m sure of it!  You won’t die, darling Dad!  Why should you?”

She broke off with a half-smothered sob.

“Why should I?” he said, with a perplexed frown; “Ah!—­that’s more than I can tell you!  There’s neither rhyme nor reason in it that I can see.  But it’s the rule of life that it should end in death.  For some the end is swift—­for some it’s slow—­some know when it’s coming—­some don’t,—­the last are the happiest.  I’ve been told, you see,—­and it’s no use my fighting against the fact,—­a year at the most, perhaps less, is the longest term I have of Briar Farm.  Your eyes are wet—­you promised you wouldn’t cry.”

She furtively dashed away the drops that were shining on her lashes.  Then she forced a faint quivering smile.

“I’m not crying, Dad,” she said.  “There’s nothing to cry for,” and she fondled his hand in her own—­“The doctors are wrong.  You’re only a little weak and run down—­you’ll be all right with rest and care—­and—­and you shan’t die!  You shan’t die!  I won’t let you.”

He drew a long breath and passed his hand across his forehead as though he were puzzled or in pain.

“That’s foolish talk,” he said, with some harshness; “You’ve got trouble to meet, and you must meet it.  I’m bound to show you trouble—­but I can show you a way out of it as well.”

He paused a moment,—­a light wind outside the lattice swayed a branch of roses to and fro, shaking out their perfume as from a swung censer.

“The first thing I must tell you,” he went on, “is about yourself.  It’s time you should know who you are.”

She looked up at him startled.

“Who I am?” she repeated,—­then as she saw the stern expression on his face a sudden sense of fear ran through her nerves like the chill of an icy wind and she waited dumbly for his next word.  He gripped her hand hard in his own.