er know that everything about her recalled her
mother, from her hair to her tone of voice, her growing caprices, and
her silly fits of temper. He could not believe in the affection of a
daughter who constantly reminded him of the hell in which he had
lived for years. If what Van Torp told Lady Maud of his own pretended
engagement to Ida was true, it was explicable only on that ground, so
far as her father was concerned. Bamberger felt no affection for
his daughter, and saw no reason why she should not be used as an
instrument, with her own consent, for consolidating the position of
the Nickel Trust.

As for the former Mrs. Bamberger, afterwards Mrs. Moon, she had gone
to Europe in the autumn, not many months after her marriage, leaving
the Senator in Washington, and had returned after nearly a year's
absence, bringing her husband a fine little girl, whom she had
christened Ida, like her first child, without consulting him. It soon
became apparent that the baby was totally deaf; and not very long
after this discovery, Mrs. Moon began to show signs of not being quite
sane. Three years later she was altogether out of her mind, and as
soon as this was clear the child was sent to the East to be taught.
The rest has already been told. Bamberger, of course, had never seen
little Ida, and had perhaps never heard of her existence, and Senator
Moon did not see her again before he died.

Bamberger had not loved his own daughter in her life, but since her
tragic death she had grown dear to him in memory, and he reproached
himself unjustly with having been cold and unkind to her. Below the
surface of his money-loving nature there was still the deep and
unsatisfied sentiment to which his wife had first appealed, and by
playing on which she had deceived him into marrying her. Her treatment
of him had not killed it, and the memory of his fair young daughter
now stirred it again. He accused himself of having misunderstood her.
What had been unreal and superficial in her mother had perhaps been
true and deep in her. He knew that she had loved him; he knew it now,
and it was the recollection of that one being who had been devoted to
him for himself, since he had been a grown man, that sometimes brought
the tears from his eyes when he was alone. It would have been a
comfort, now, to have loved her in return while she lived, and to have
trusted in her love then, instead of having been tormented by the
belief that she was as false as her m