Like all the rest of the world, she was given to understand that
her father had cruelly abandoned her mother. In her soul she had
always cherished the hope that this heartless monster might one
day stand before her, pleading and penitent, only to be turned away
with the scorn he so richly deserved. She even pictured him as rich
and powerful, possessed of everything except the one great boon
which she alone could give him,--a daughter's love. And she would
point to the top of Quill's Window and tell him that he must first
look there for forgiveness,--under the rocks where his broken-hearted
victim slept.

The truth stunned her. She was a long time in realizing that her
grandfather, whom she both loved and feared,--this grim, adoring
old giant,--not only had murdered her father but undoubtedly had
killed her mother as well. The story that David Windom had written
out and signed at the certain approach of death, read aloud in
his presence by the shocked and incredulous lawyer, and afterwards
printed word for word in the newspapers at the old man's command,
changed the whole course of life for her. In fact, her nature
underwent a sharp but subtle change. There was nothing left to her
of the old life, no thought, no purpose, no fancy; all had been
swept up in a heap and destroyed in the short space of half an
hour. Everything in her life had to be reconstructed, made-over to
suit the new order. She could no longer harbour vengeful thoughts
concerning her father, she could no longer charge him with the
wanton destruction of her mother's happiness.

The grandfather she had loved all her life assumed another shape
entirely; he was no longer the same, and never again could be the