you there at South Harniss, who you were, and about Captain Gould and Mr. Hamilton, that I noticed he was acting queerly.  I was head over heels in my story, trying to make plain how desperate my case was and doing my best to make him appreciate how tremendously lucky his son was to have even a glimmer of a chance to get a girl like you for a wife, when I heard him make an odd noise in his throat.  I looked up—­I don’t know where I had been looking before—­certainly not at him—­and there he was, leaning back in his chair, his face as white as his collar, and waving a hand at me.  I thought he was choking, or was desperately ill or something, and I sprang toward him, but he waved me back.  “Stop!  Wait!” he said, or stammered, or choked; it was more like a croak than a human voice.  “Don’t come here!  Let me be!  What are you trying to tell me?  Who—­who is this girl?” I asked him what was the matter—­his manner and his look frightened me—­but he wouldn’t answer, kept ordering me to tell him again who you were.  So I did tell him that you were the daughter of the Reverend Charles Lathrop and Augusta Lathrop, and of your mother’s second marriage to Captain Marcellus Hall.  “But he died when she was seven years old,” I went on, “and since that time she has been living with her guardians, the two fine old fellows who adopted her, Captain Shadrach Gould and Zoeth Hamilton.  They live at South Harniss on Cape Cod.”  I had gotten no further than this when he interrupted me.  “She—­she has been living with Zoeth Hamilton?” he cried.  “With Zoeth Hamilton!  Oh, my God!  Did—­did Zoeth Hamilton send you to me?” Yes, that is exactly what he said:  “Did Zoeth Hamilton send you to me?” I stared at him.  “Why, no, Dad,” I said, as soon as I could say anything.  “Of course he didn’t.  I have met Mr. Hamilton but once in my life.  What is the matter?  Sit down again.  Don’t you think I had better call the doctor?” I thought surely his brain was going.  But no, he wouldn’t answer or listen.  Instead he looked at me with the wildest, craziest expression and said:  “Did Zoeth Hamilton tell you?” “He told me nothing, Dad,” I said, as gently as I could.  “Of course he didn’t.  I am almost a stranger to him.  Besides, what in the world was there to tell?  I came to you because I had something to tell.  I mean to marry Mary Lathrop, if she will have me—­” I got no further than that.  “No!” he fairly screamed.  “No!  No!  No!  Oh, my God, no!” And then the doctor came running in, we got Dad to bed, and it was all over for that day, except that I naturally was tremendously upset and conscience-stricken.  I could see that the doctor thought I was to blame, that I had confessed something or other—­something criminal, I imagine he surmised—­to Dad and that it had knocked the poor old chap over.  And I couldn’t explain, because what I had told him was not for outsiders to hear.