He stopped, looking at her.

She had risen from her seat beside him and was standing up.  She was trembling violently, and her face seemed changed from the round and mobile softness of youth to the worn pallor and thinness of age.  Her eyes were luminous with a hard and feverish brilliancy.

“You—­you don’t know whose child I am!” she repeated,—­“I am not yours—­and you don’t know—­you don’t know who I belong to!  Oh, it hurts me!—­it hurts me, Dad!  I can’t realise it!  I thought you were my own dear father!—­and I loved you!—­oh, how much I loved you!—­yet you have deceived me all along!”

“I haven’t deceived you,” he answered, impatiently.  “I’ve done all for the best—­I meant to tell you when you married Robin—­”

A flush of indignation flew over her cheeks.

“Marry Robin!” she exclaimed—­“How could I marry Robin?  I’m nothing!  I’m nobody!  I have not even a name!”

She covered her face with her hands and an uncontrollable sob broke from her.

“Not even a name!” she murmured—­“Not even a name!”

With a sudden impulsive movement she knelt down in front of him like a child about to say its prayers.

“Oh, help me, Dad!” she said, piteously—­“Comfort me!  Say something—­anything!  I feel so lost—­so astray!  All my life seems gone!—­I can’t realise it!  Yes, I know!  You have been very kind,—­ all kindness, just as if I had been your own little girl.  Oh, why did you tell me I was your own?—­I was so proud to be your daughter—­and now—­it’s so hard—­so hard!  Only a few moments ago I was a happy girl with a loving father as I thought—­now I know I’m only a poor nameless creature,—­deserted by my parents and left on your hands.  Oh, Dad dear!  I’ve given you years of trouble!—­I hope I’ve been good to you!  It’s not my fault that I am what I am!”

He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.

“Dear child, of course it’s not your fault!  That’s what I’ve said all along.  You’re innocent, like your name,—­and you’ve been a blessing to me all your days,—­the farm has been brighter for your living on it,—­so you’ve no cause to worry me or yourself about what’s past long ago and can’t be helped.  No one knows your story but Priscilla,—­no one need ever know.”

She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.

“Priscilla!” she echoed—­“She knew, and she never said a word!”

“If she had, she’d have got the sack,” answered Jocelyn, bluntly.  “You were brought up always as my child.”

He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.

“I want to know how that was,” she said, slowly.  “You told me my mother died when I was born.”

He avoided her eyes.

“Well, that was true, or so I suppose,” he said.  “The man who brought you said you were motherless.  But I—­I have never married.”

“Then how could you tell Robin—­and everyone else about here that I was your daughter?”