"As much as you ought to be, my beauty, and no more. You ain't like the skinny little bit of a thing that ran wild round Beechfield lanes; but then you don't want to be. You're a good deal like your mother; but she wasn't as dark as you. And, being so different, you see, I thought you might be different in yourself--not ready to acknowledge your father as belonging to you at all, maybe; and so I'd try you with a message first and see what you said to that."

"You are altered too, father."

"Yes, my deary, I'm altered too. Hain't I had enough to alter me?

Injustice and oppression have almost broke my heart, and ague and fever's taken the strength out o' my limbs, and a knock I got in the States three years ago has nigh crippled me. I'm a broken-down man, with only strength left for one thing--and that's to curse the hard-hearted ruffian, whoever he was, that spoiled my life for me, and thought to hang me by the neck or shut me up in prison for the rest of my days. If ever I could come across him, I'd do my best to make him suffer as I have suffered. I pray God night and day that He'll let me see that rascal on his knees to me yet before I die!"

His voice had grown loud and fierce, his eyes shone beneath the shaggy eyebrows, his hand shook as he raised it to call down vengeance on the man who had left him to his fate. Cynthia trembled in spite of her love for him--the tones, the look, brought back memories which made her feel that her father was in a great many ways unchanged, and that the wild, lawless nature of the man might be suppressed but never utterly subdued.

She did not feel the slightest abatement of her love for him on this account; but it suddenly made her aware of the dangers and difficulties of his position, and aroused her fears for his safety, even in that house.

"Father," she said "are you sure that nobody will remember you?"

Westwood laughed harshly.

"They're not likely to know me," he said. "I've taken care to change my looks since then;" and, by a sudden movement of his hand, he showed her that hair, beard, and moustache were all fictitious, and that beneath the silvery exterior there grew a scantier crop of sparse gray hair and whiskers, which recalled his former appearance much more clearly to his daughter's mind.

"Oh, don't take them off!" she cried. "Somebody may come in--the door is not locked! At another time, dear father, you will show me your real face, will you not?"

He looked at her with a mingling of pride and sorrow in his glance.

"And you ain't wanting me to be found out then--you don't want to give me up to the police?"

"Father, how can you think of such a thing?"

"Some women-folks would think of it, my girl. But you--you're fond of your father still, Cynthy?"

She answered by taking his rough hand in her own and kissing it tenderly.

"And you don't believe I killed Mr. Vane down at Beechfield--eh, Cynthy?

Because if you believe it, you know, you and me had better part without more words about it. Least said, soonest mended."

"I do not believe it--I never did!" said Cynthia proudly.

"On your word and honor and Bible-oath, Cynthia?"

"On my word and honor and on my Bible-oath, father," she said, repeating the words, because she saw that he attached especial importance to the formula. "I never believed and never will believe that you were guilty of Sydney Vane's murder! My father"--she said it as proudly as if he had been a Royal Prince--"was never capable of a base and wicked deed!"

"It's her mother's voice," murmured the man, raising his hand to his eyes, as if to shut out the sight of the young girl's face, and to abstract himself from everything but the sound, "and it's her mother's trust in me! Cynthia, my dear, what do you know o' your father to make you so ready to stand by him?" There was a great and an unaccustomed tenderness in his tone. "I'm a common man, and I've spent years of my life in gaol, and I was a tramp and a poacher--I won't deny it--in the olden days; and before that--well, before that, I was a gamekeeper on a big estate--turned away in disgrace, my dear, because my master's daughter fell in love with me. You never heard that before, did you?--though any one would guess that you didn't come of a common stock!

Wetheral was her name--Cynthia Wetheral of Bingley Park, in Gloucestershire. There are relatives of hers living there still; but they don't acknowledge us--they won't have anything to do with you, Cynthia, my girl. I married her and took her away wi' me; and for twelve blessed months we were as happy as the day was long; and then she died."

He paused a little, and caressed Cynthia's head with his hand.

"You're like her, my dear. But I'm only a low common sort o' man that sunk lower and lower since the day she died; and you've no call to trust me unless you feel inclined--no call in the very least. If you say you don't quite believe my word, my pretty, I'll not cut up rough--I'll just go away quiet, and never trouble you any more."

"Father," said Cynthia, "listen to me one moment. We were separated when I was only eleven years old; but don't you think that in eleven years I could learn something of your real disposition--your true nature? I remember how you used to care for me, how tender and kind you were to me, although you might perhaps seem gloomy and morose to all the world beside. I remember your bringing home a dog with a broken leg, and nursing it till it was cured. You had pets of all kinds--birds, beasts, flowers. You never did a cruel thing in your life; and how could I think then, that you would lie in wait to kill a man out of mere spite and revenge--a man, too, with a wife and a child--a little girl like me? I knew you better, father, all the time!"

Westwood shook his head doubtfully.

"Maybe you're right," he said, "and maybe wrong. I've seen rough deeds done in my day, and never lifted a hand to interfere. I won't deny but what I did lie in wait for Mr. Vane that very afternoon--but with no thought of murder in my mind. I meant to tell him what my opinion was of him and of his doings; for there was carryings-on that I didn't approve of, and it's my belief that in those very carryings-on lies the key of the mystery. I've thought it all out in prison, slow-like--at nights when I lay in bed, and days when I was hewing stone. I won't tell you the story, my pretty; it ain't fit for the likes of you. But there was a woman mixed up in it; and, if there was any man who had rights over the woman--sweetheart or husband, brother or father, or such-like--it's in that quarter that you and me should look for the real murderer of Sydney Vane."

"Can't we do anything, father? Won't you tell me the whole story?"

"Not now, my girl; I must be going."

"Where are you going, father? Will you be in a safe place?"

"Quite safe, my dear--quite safe! Nobody would know me in this guise, would they? I'm at No. 119 Isabella Street, Camden Town--quite a little out-o'-the-way place--just the sort to suit a quiet respectable-looking man like me." He gave vent to a grim little chuckle as he went on. "They don't know who they've got hold of, do they? Maybe they wouldn't be quite so pleased if they did."

"May I come and see you there, father?"

"Well, my girl, I think not. Such a--a splendid-looking sort of a party as you've turned out coming to visit me would make people talk. And we don't want people to talk, do we? Isn't there any quiet spot where you and me could meet and walk about a bit? Kensington Gardens; maybe, or Regent's Park?"

Cynthia thought that Kensington Gardens would be quiet enough in the morning for their purpose, and it was agreed that they should meet there the next day at noon. Westwood's disguise was so perfect that he did not attempt to seclude himself during the day.

"And then," he said, "we can talk about you coming over to Ameriky, and living happy and quiet somewhere with me."

"Oh, I can't leave England!" said Cynthia, with a sudden little gasp.

"Don't ask me, father; I can't possibly go away."

He looked at her keenly and scrutinisingly for a moment, and then he said--

"That means that you've got a reason for wanting to stop in England.

That means that you've got a sweetheart--a lover, my pretty--and that you won't leave him. I know the ways of women well enough. I don't want to force you, my girl; but I hope that he's worthy of the woman you've grown to be. Tell me his name."

CHAPTER XXIX.

Cynthia's father did not get his question answered, because at that moment a thundering knock at the front-door announced the return of Madame, and there was rather a hasty struggle to get him away from the house without encountering that lady's sharp eyes and vivacious questioning, which Cynthia was not at all sure that he could meet with equanimity. For herself she felt at that moment equal to any struggle involving either cunning or courage. She could combat to death for one she loved.

"Who was that man, _carissima_? Why was he here at this hour of the night? You are a little imprudent, are you not, to receive such visitors without me?" said Madame, having caught a glimpse of the intruder's retiring figure.

Cynthia laughed.

"He is venerable, Madame--white-bearded, old, and a relative--an uncle from America whom I have not seen since I was a child. I believe that he has made a fortune and wants to endow me with it. We shall see!"

"Ah, my angel, if he would do that," cried Madame cheerfully, "we would welcome him at any hour of the day or night, would not we? Bid him to dinner with thee, little one, or to tea, after thy English fashion--as thou wilt. The uncle with money is always a desired visitor."

And thus Cynthia escaped further questioning, although at the cost of an untruth which she did not consider it her duty to repent. "For surely,"

she said to herself, "it is right for a daughter to sacrifice anything and everything to her father's safety! I was ashamed of having to tell Hubert what was not true just for my own benefit; but I am not ashamed of deceiving Madame for my father's sake. I am sorry--ah, yes, I am sorry! But what can I do?" And in the solitude of her own room Cynthia wrung her hands together, and shed a few bitter tears over the hardness and strangeness of her fate.

To one who knew all the facts of her story and her father's story, it might indeed have been a matter for meditation that "wrong-doing never ends"--that, because Sydney Vane had been an unprincipled man and Florence Lepel a woman without a conscience, therefore a child of whom they never heard had grown up without the presence of a father's love, or the innate reverence for truth that prevailed in the heart of a Jeanie Deans. Cynthia was no Jeanie Deans; she was a faulty but noble-hearted woman, with a nature that had suffered some slight warping from the effect of adverse circumstance.

Cynthia and her father met the next morning under the spreading branches of the trees in Kensington Gardens; and there, as they walked up and down together, Westwood unfolded his plans. From what he let slip--although he tried not to be too definite--it was evident that he had made considerable sums of money, or what he thought such; and he wanted Cynthia to give up working, and "go West" with him. He assured her that she should have every comfort, every luxury; that he was likely to make more and more money as time went on, and that he might even become a millionaire. Would she not partake of the magnificence that was in store for her? But Cynthia shook her head. And then he spoke of his loneliness, of his long absence from his only child, and his desire to have a home of his own; now that he began to feel the infirmities of age, he not only wanted a daughter as an ornament to his house, but as the prop of his declining years. And at this Cynthia shed tears and began to waver. Ought she not to go with her father? she asked herself.

It might be better for Hubert, as well as for her, if she went away; and, even if at the end of two years she became Hubert's wife, she would at any rate have had two years with her father. And, if Hubert married "the other girl," she would stay with her father until his life's end--or hers. But the fact remained at the end of all arguments--she did not want to go.

"What do you want to stay in England for?" Westwood said at length. "Is it to make money? I've got enough for both of us. Is it to sing in public? You'll get bigger audiences over there, my girl. If you love your old father as you say you do, why won't you come along with him?"

He paused, and added, almost in a whisper, "Unless there's somebody you like better, I don't see why you want to stay."