He laid his wrinkled hand on her bowed head.

"Dear child, of course it's not your fault! That's what I've said
all along. You're innocent, like your name,--and you've been a
blessing to me all your days,--the farm has been brighter for your
living on it,--so you've no cause to worry me or yourself about
what's past long ago and can't be helped. No one knows your story
but Priscilla,--no one need ever know."

She sprang up from her kneeling attitude.

"Priscilla!" she echoed--"She knew, and she never said a word!"

"If she had, she'd have got the sack," answered Jocelyn, bluntly.
"You were brought up always as MY child."

He broke off, startled by the tragic intensity of her look.

"I want to know how that was," she said, slowly. "You told me my
mother died when I was born."

He avoided her eyes.

"Well, that was true, or so I suppose," he said. "The man who
brought you said you were motherless. But I--I have never
married."

"Then how could you tell Robin--and everyone else about here that
I was your daughter?"