"Ida," he said, slowly and pleadingly, "be very careful--be sure this
is not a passing impulse, a mere remorseful twinge of conscience.
I've been hoping for years--I would have prayed, if I dared to--for
some token that I was not a burden to you and your mother. You
seemed to love me some when you were little, but as you grew older
you grew away from me. I've tried to forget that I had a heart.
I've tried to become a beast because it was agony to be a man. why
I have lived I scarcely know. I thought I had suffered all that I
could suffer in this world, but I was mistaken. I left this place
last Monday with the fear that my beautiful daughter was giving
her love to a man even baser than I am, base and low from choice,
base and corrupt in every fibre of his soul and body, and from
that hour to this it has seemed as if I were ground between two
millstones," and he shuddered as if smitten with an ague. "Ida,"
he concluded piteously, "I'm too weak, I'm too far gone to bear
disappointment. This is more than an impulse, is it not? You will
not throw yourself away? Oh, Ida, my only child, if you could be
in heart what you were in your face as you greeted me to-night, I
could die content!"
For a few minutes the poor girl could only sob convulsively on his
breast.
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