Elsie longed for, yet dreaded her father's coming. She knew he would not delay one moment longer than necessary after receiving their letters, yet he reached Lansdale almost a day sooner than she expected him.
Sitting alone in her room, she heard his voice and step in the hall below. She flew down to meet him.
"My darling, precious child!" And her arms were about his neck, his straining her to his heart. The next moment she lifted her face, and her eyes sought his with a wistful, pleading, questioning look. He drew her into the sitting-room, and Miss Stanhope closed the door, leaving them alone.
"My darling," he said, "you must give him up; he is utterly unworthy of you."
"My precious one, I would save you from a life of misery."
"Ah, papa! you would never say that if you knew how--how I love him," she murmured, a deep blush suffusing her face.
"Hush! it horrifies me to hear you speak so of so vile a wretch,--a drinking, swearing gambler, swindler, and rake; for I have learned that he is all these."
"Papa, it is not true! I will not hear such things said of him, even by you!" she cried, the hot blood dyeing her face and neck, and the soft eyes filling with indignant tears.
He put his finger upon her lips. "My daughter forgets to whom she is speaking," he said with something of the old sternness, though there was tender pity also in his tones.
"Oh, papa, I am so wretched!" she sobbed, hiding her face on his breast. "Oh, don't believe what they say; it isn't, it can't be true."
He caressed her silently, then taking the photograph from his pocket, asked, "Do you know that face?"
"I knew it, and it is also the face of the man whose character I have just described."
"Oh, no, papa!" and with breathless eagerness she repeated the story with which Egerton had swept away all her doubts. She read incredulity in her father's face, "You do not believe it, papa?"
"No, my child, no more than I do black is white. See here!" and he produced Egerton's letter to him, and the one to Arthur, made her read and compare them, and gave her the further proofs Walter had furnished.
She grew deathly pale, but was no more ready to be convinced than he. "Oh, papa, there must be some dreadful mistake! I cannot believe he could be guilty of such things. The cousin has been personating him, has forged that letter, perhaps; and the photograph may be his also."