“It’s the old story, I see!  Do a good action and it turns out a curse!  Basely born!  Of course you are basely born, if that’s the way you put it!  What man alive would leave his own lawful child at a strange farm off the high-road and never claim it again?  You’re a fool, I tell you!  This man who brought you to me was by his look and bearing some fine gentleman or other who had just the one idea in his head—­to get rid of an encumbrance.  And so he got rid of you—­”

“Don’t go over the whole thing again!” she interrupted, with weary patience-"-I was an encumbrance to him—­I’ve been an encumbrance to you.  I’m sorry!  But in no case had you the right to set a stigma on me which perhaps does not exist.  That was wrong!”

She paused a moment, then went on slowly: 

“I’ve been a burden on you for six years now,—­it’s six years, you say, since the money stopped.  I wish I could do something in return for what I’ve cost you all those six years,—­I’ve tried to be useful.”

The pathos in her voice touched him to the quick.

“Innocent!” he exclaimed, and held out his arms.

She looked at him with a very pitiful smile and shook her head.

“No!  I can’t do that!  Not just yet!  You see, it’s all so unexpected—­things have changed altogether in a moment.  I can’t feel quite the same—­my heart seems so sore and cold.”

He leaned back in his chair again.

“Ah, well, it is as I thought!” he said, irritably.  “You’re more concerned about yourself than about me.  A few minutes ago you only cared to know what the doctors thought of my illness, but now it’s nothing to you that I shall be dead in a year.  Your mind is set on your own trouble, or what you choose to consider a trouble.”

She heard him like one in a dream.  It seemed very strange to her that he should have dealt her a blow and yet reproach her for feeling the force of it.

“I am sorry!” she said, patiently.  “But this is the first time I have known real trouble—­you forget that!—­and you must forgive me if I am stupid about it.  And if the doctors really believe you are to die in a year I wish I could take your place, Dad!—­I would rather be dead than live shamed.  And there’s nothing left for me now,—­not even a name—­”

Here she paused and seemed to reflect.

“Why am I called Innocent?”

“Why?  Because that’s the name that was written on every slip of paper that came with each six months’ money,” he answered, testily.  “That’s the only reason I know.”

“Was I baptised by that name?” she asked.

He moved uneasily.

“You were never baptised.”

“Never baptised!” She echoed the words despairingly,—­and then was silent for a minute’s space.  “Could you not have done that much for me?” she asked, plaintively, at last—­“Would it have been impossible?”

He was vaguely ashamed.  Her eyes, pure as a young child’s, were fixed upon him in appealing sorrow.  He began to feel that he had done her a grievous wrong, though he had never entirely realised it till now.  He answered her with some hesitation and an effort at excuse.