He rose up now, and having taken a turn or two across the room, approached her, and in deep, earnest, and what he intended to be, and was, an impressive and startling voice, added: 

“Yes, Miss Gourlay, he has told me all.”

Lucy looked at him, unmoved as to the information, for she knew it was false; but she left him nothing to complain of with—­regard to her paleness now.  In fact, she blushed deeply at the falsehood he attempted to impose upon her.  The whole tenor and spirit of the conversation was instantly changed, and assumed for a moment a painful and disagreeable formality.

“To whom do you allude, sir.” she asked.

“To the gentleman, madam, to whom you bowed so graciously, and, let me add, significantly, to-day.”

“And may I beg to know, sir, what he has told you?”

“Have I not already said that he has told me all?  Yes, madam, I have said so, I think.  But come, Lucy,” he added, affecting to relax, “be a good girl; as you said, yourself, it should not be sir and madam between you and me.  You are all I have in the world—­my only child, and if I appear harsh to you, it is only because I love and am anxious to make you happy.  Come, my dear child, put confidence in me, and rely upon my affection and generosity.”

Lucy was staggered for a moment, but only for a moment, for she thoroughly understood him.

“But, papa, if the gentleman you allude to has told you all, what is there left for me to confide to you?”

“Why, the truth is, Lucy, I was anxious to test his sincerity, and to have your version as well as his.  He appears, certainly, to be a gentleman and a man of honor.”

“And if he be a man of honor, papa, how can you require such a test?”

“I said, observe, that he appears to be such; but, you know, a man may be mistaken in the estimate he forms of another in a first interview.  Come, Lucy, do something to make me your friend.”

“My friend!” she replied, whilst the tears rose to her eyes.  “Alas, papa, must I hear such language as this from a father’s lips?  Should anything be necessary to make that father the friend of his only child?  I know not how to reply to you, sir; you have placed me in a position of almost unexampled distress and pain.  I cannot, without an apparent want of respect and duty, give expression to what I know and feel.”

“Why not, you foolish girl, especially when you see me in such good-humor?  Take courage.  You will find me more indulgent than you imagine.  Imitate your lover yonder.”

She looked at him, and her eyes sparkled through her tears with shame, but not merely with shame, for her heart was filled with such an indignant and oppressive sense of his falsehood as caused her to weep and sob aloud for two or three minutes.

“Come, my dear child, I repeat—­imitate your lover yonder.  Confess; but don’t weep thus.  Surely I am not harsh to you now?”