n--that I was swarthy--that I was a
cripple--and that my mother--had Frank. It was as though my heart
must leap from my breast towards that child. Not a word had she
spoken, but she had said what the little maimed 'fighting Hal'
yearned to hear, and without _knowing_ that he yearned.

I restrained myself, and did not yield to the feeling that impelled
me to throw my arms round her neck in an ecstasy of wonder and
delight. After a second or two she again threw back her head to gaze
at the golden cloud.

'Look!' said she, suddenly clapping her hands, 'it's over both of us
now.'

'What is it?' I said.

'The Dukkeripen,' she said, 'the Golden Hand. Sinfi and Rhona both
say the Golden Hand brings luck: what _is_ luck?'

I looked up at the little cloud which to me seemed more like a golden
feather than a golden hand. But I soon bent my eyes down again to
look at her.

While I stood looking at her, the tall figure of a man came out of
the church. This was Tom Wynne. Besides being the organist of Raxton
'New Church,' Tom was also (for a few extra shillings a week)
custodian of the 'Old Church,' this deserted pile within whose
precincts we now were. Tom's features wore an expression of virtuous
indignation which puzzled me, and evidently frightened the little
girl. He locked the door, and walked unsteadily towards us. He seemed
surprised to see me there, and his features relaxed into a bland
civility.

'This is (hiccup) Master Aylwin, Winifred,' he said.

The child looked at me again with the same smile. Her alarm had fled.

'This is my little daughter Winifred,' said Tom, with a pompous bow.

I was astonished. I never knew that Wynne had a daughter, for
intimate as he and I had become, he had actually never mentioned his
daughter before.

'My _only_ daughter,' Tom repeated.

He then told me, with many hiccups, that, since her mother's death
(that is to say from her very infancy), Winifred had been brought up
by an aunt in Wales. 'Quite a lady, her aunt is,' said Tom proudly,
'and Winifred has come to spend a few weeks with her father.'

He said this in a grandly paternal tone--a tone that seemed meant to
impress upon her how very much obliged she ought to feel to him for
consenting to be her father; and, judging from the look the child
gave him, she did feel very much obliged.

Suddenly, however, a thought seemed to come back upon Tom, a thought
which my unexpected appearance on the scene had driven from hi