beautiful eyes fixed so earnestly on her face. She hesitated, and passed
her trembling fingers over Fan's disordered hair, and finally burst into
tears.

"Oh, Fan, I can't help it," she said, half sobbing. "You have just his
eyes, and it brings it all back when I look into them. It was wicked of
me to go wrong, for I was brought up good and honest in the country; but
he was a gentleman, and kind and good to me, and not a working-man and a
drunken brute like poor Joe. But I sha'n't ever see him again. I don't
know where he is, and he wouldn't know me if he saw me; and perhaps he's
dead now. I loved him and he loved me, but we couldn't marry because he
was a gentleman and me only a servant-girl, and I think he had a wife.
But I didn't care, because he was good to me and loved me, and he gave me
a hundred pounds to get married, and I can't ever tell you his name, Fan,
because I promised never to name him to anyone, and kissed the Book on it
when he gave me the hundred pounds, and it would be wicked to tell now.
And Joe, he wanted to marry me; he knew it all, and took the hundred
pounds and said it would make no difference. He'd love you just the same,
he said, and never throw it up to me; and that's why I married Joe. Oh,
what a fool I was, to be sure! But it can't be helped now, and it's no
use saying more about it. Now go to bed, Fan, and forget all I've said to
you."

Fan rose and went sorrowfully to her bed; but she did not forget, or try
to forget, what she had heard. It was sad to lose that hope of ever
seeing her father, but it was a secret joy to know that he had been kind
and loving to her poor mother, and that he was a gentleman, and not one
like Joe Harrod; that thought kept her awake in her cold bed for a long
time--long after Joe and his wife were peacefully sleeping side by side.