"Papa, it is not true, I think."

"It is well attested, Daisy."

"By whom?"

"By a friend of Miss St. Clair, who was with her in Washington

and knew the whole progress of the affair, and testifies to

their being engaged."

"To whose being engaged, papa?"

"Miss St. Clair and your friend, - Colonel Somebody. I forget

his name, Daisy, though you told me, I believe."

"He was not a colonel, papa; not at all; not near it."

"No. He has been promoted, I understand. Promotions are rapid

in the Northern army now-a-days; a lieutenant in the regulars

is transformed easily into a colonel of volunteers. They want

more officers than they have got, I suppose."

I remained silent, thinking.

"Who told you all this, papa?"

"Your mother. She has it direct from the friend of your

rival."

"But, papa, nobody knew about me. It was kept entirely

private."

"Not after you came away, I suppose. How else should this

story be told as of the gentleman you were engaged to?"

I waited a little while, to get my voice steady, and then I

went on with my reading to papa. Once he interrupted me to

say, "Daisy, how do you take this that I have been telling

you?" - and at the close of our reading he asked again in a

perplexed manner, "You do not let it trouble you, Daisy?" -

and each time I answered him, "I do not believe it, papa."

Neither did I; but at the same time a dreadful shadow of

possibility came over my spirit. I could not get from under

it, and my soul fainted, as those were said to do who lay down

for shelter under the upas tree. A poison as of death seemed

to distil upon me from that shadow. Not let it trouble me? It

was a man's question, I suppose, put with a man's

powerlessness to read a woman's mind; even though the man was

my father.

I noticed from that time more than ever his tender lingering

looks upon me, wistful, and doubtful. It was hard to bear

them, and I would not confess to them. I would not and did not

show by look or word that I put faith in the story my father

had brought me, or that I had lost faith in any one who had

ever commanded it. Indeed I did not believe the story. I did

trust Mr. Thorold. Nevertheless the cold chill of a "What if?"

- fell upon me sometimes. Could I say that it was an

impossibility, that he should have turned from me, from one

whom such a thorn hedge of difficulties encompassed, to

another woman so much, - I was going to say, so much more

beautiful; but I do not mean that, for I do not think it. No,

but to one whose beauty was so brilliant and whose hand was so

attainable? It would not be an impossibility in the case of

many men. Yes, I trusted Mr. Thorold; but so had other women

trusted. A woman's trust is not a guarantee for the worthiness

of its object. I had only my trust and my knowledge. Could I

say that both might not be mistaken? And trust as I would,

these thoughts would rise.




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