"What does it mean," asked Edith again--"this Hobart Town, Van Diemen's
Land? What does it mean?"

"Well, dear," said Miss Plympton, in strangely gentle and mournful
voice, "you have never known much about your poor father, and you have
never known exactly where he has been living. He did not live in India,
dear; he never lived in India. He lived in--in--Van Diemen's Land."

Miss Plympton's tone and look affected Edith very unpleasantly. The
mystery about her father seemed to grow darker, and to assume something
of an ill-omened character. The name also--Van Diemen's Land--served to
heighten her dark apprehensions; and this discovery that she had known
even less than she supposed about her father made it seem as though the
knowledge that had thus been hidden could not but be painful.

"What do you mean?" she asked again; and her voice died down to a
whisper through the vague fears that had been awakened. "I thought that
poor papa lived in India--that he held some office under government."

"I know that you believed so," said Miss Plympton, regarding Edith with
a look that was full of pity and mournful sympathy. "That was what I
gave out. None of the girls have ever suspected the truth. No one knows
whose daughter you really are. They do not suspect that your father was
Dalton of Dalton Hall. They think that he was an Indian resident in the
Company's service. Yes, I have kept the secret well, dear--the secret
that I promised your dear mother on her death-bed to keep from all the
world, and from you, darling, till the time should come for you to know.
And often and often, dear, have I thought of this moment, and tried to
prepare for it; but now, since it has come, I am worse than unprepared.