Babbicombe, where Jack used to practice. But Jack saw at once under
this rough exterior he had the voice and address of a cultivated
gentleman, though he was so broken down by want and long suffering
and exposure and illness that he looked like a beggar just let loose
from the workhouse.

I held my breath as Jack showed me the poor old man's photograph. It
was a portrait taken after death--for Jack attended him to the end
through a fatal illness;--and it showed a face thin and worn, and
much lined by unspeakable hardships. But I burst out crying at once
the very moment I looked at it. For a second or two, I couldn't say
why: I suppose it was instinct. Blood is thicker than water, they
tell us; and I have the intuition of kindred very strong in me, I
believe. But at any rate, I cried silently, with big hot tears,
while I looked at that dead face of silent suffering, as I never had
cried over the photograph of the respectable-looking man who lay
dead on the floor of the library, and whom I was always taught to
consider my father. Then it came back to me, why... I gazed at it
and grew faint. I clutched Jack's arm for support. I knew what it
meant now. The poor worn old man who lay dead on the bed with that
look of mute agony on his features--was my first papa: the papa in
the loose white linen coat: the one I remembered with childlike love
and trustfulness in my earliest babyish Australian recollections!

I couldn't mistake the face. It was burnt into my brain now. This
was he, though much older and sadder, and more scarred and lined by
age and weather. It was my very first papa. My own papa. I cried
silently still. I couldn't bear to look at it. Then the real truth
broke upon me once more. This, and this alone, was in very deed my
one real father!