r, and sat up suddenly with a movement of terror.

"Oh, father!" she murmured faintly, and in that word there was expressed
regret and fear and dawning hope.

"I shall never forgive you, Nina," said Almayer, in a dispassionate
voice. "You have torn my heart from me while I dreamt of your happiness.
You have deceived me. Your eyes that for me were like truth itself lied
to me in every glance--for how long? You know that best. When you were
caressing my cheek you were counting the minutes to the sunset that was
the signal for your meeting with that man--there!"

He ceased, and they both sat silent side by side, not looking at each
other, but gazing at the vast expanse of the sea. Almayer's words had
dried Nina's tears, and her look grew hard as she stared before her into
the limitless sheet of blue that shone limpid, unwaving, and steady like
heaven itself. He looked at it also, but his features had lost all
expression, and life in his eyes seemed to have gone out. The face was a
blank, without a sign of emotion, feeling, reason, or even knowledge of
itself. All passion, regret, grief, hope, or anger--all were gone,
erased by the hand of fate, as if after this last stroke everything was
over and there was no need for any record.

Those few who saw Almayer during the short period of his remaining days
were always impressed by the sight of that face that seemed to know
nothing of what went on within: like the blank wall of a prison enclosing
sin, regrets, and pain, and wasted life, in the cold indifference of
mortar and stones.

"What is there to forgive?" asked Nina, not addressing Almayer directly,
but more as if arguing with herself. "Can I not live my own life as you
have lived yours? The path you would have wished me to follow has been
closed to me by no fault of mine."

"You never told me," muttered Almayer.

"You never asked me," she answered, "and I thought you were like the
others and did not care. I bore the memory of my humiliation alone, and
why should I tell you that it came to me because I am your daughter? I
knew you could not avenge me."

"And yet I was thinking of that only," interrupted Almayer, "and I wanted
to give you years of happiness for the short day of your suffering. I
only knew of one way."

"Ah! but it was not my way!" she replied. "Could you give me happiness
without life? Life!" she repeated with sudden energy that sent the word
ringing over the sea. "Life that means