art strings, but I steeled myself against him.
One thing I must know.

"Where is the person with whom--" I could not finish the words.

"I do not know." The words rang true. I was sure he was not lying to
me. "I have not seen or heard of her in over twenty years."

Then the association had not lasted. I had a sudden clairvoyant
glimpse into my father's soul. My mother had been the real love of
his life. His infatuation for the other woman had been but a temporary
madness. What long drawn out, agonized repentance must have been his
for twenty years with wife, child and home lost to him!

I leaned back and closed my eyes for a minute, overwhelmed with the
problem which confronted me. And then--call it hallucination or what
you will--I heard my mother's voice, as clearly as I ever heard it in
life, repeating the words I had read weeks before in the letter she
had left for me at her death.

"Remember it is my last wish, Margaret, that if your father be living
sometime you may be reconciled to him."

I opened my eyes with a little cry of thanksgiving. It was as if my
mother had stretched out her hand from heaven to sanction the one
thing I most longed to do.

"Father!" I gasped. "Oh, my father, I have wanted you so."

He uttered a little cry of joy, and then my father's arms were around
me, my face was close to his, and for the first time since I was a
baby of four years I knew my father's kisses.

A smothered sound, almost like a groan, startled me, and then the door
slammed shut.

"What was that?" I asked. "Is there any one there?"

My father raised his head. "No, there is no one there," he said. "See,
the wind is rising. It must have been that which slammed the door. I
think I would better shut the window."

He moved over to the window, which Lillian had kept partly ajar for
air, and closed it. Then he returned to my bedside.

"There is one thing I must ask you to do, my child," he said
hesitatingly, "and that is to keep secret the fact that instead of
being Robert Gordon, I am in reality Charles Robert Gordon Spencer,
and your father. Of course your husband must know and Mrs. Underwood,
as her husband is going with me to South America. But I should advise
very strongly against the knowledge coming into the possession of any
one else.

"I cannot explain to you now, why I dropped part of my name, or why I
exact this promise," he went on, "but it is imperative that I do ask
it, and that you heed the reques