"She may have told your
brother."
"Are you speaking of Miss Orr?"
Her voice sounded strange in her own ears.
"Yes," he said slowly. "But I suppose one should give her her
rightful name, from now on."
"I--I hadn't heard," said Fanny, feeling her hard-won courage
slipping from her. "Jim didn't tell me. But of course I am
not--surprised."
He evidently experienced something of the emotion she had just
denied.
"No one seemed to have guessed it," he said. "But now everything is
plain. Poor girl!"
He fell into a fit of musing, which he finally broke to say:
"I thought you would go to see her. She sorely needs friends."
"She has--you," said Fanny in a smothered voice.
For the life of her she could not withhold that one lightning flash
out of her enveloping cloud.
He disclaimed her words with a swift gesture.
"I'm not worthy to claim her friendship, nor yours," he said humbly;
"but I hope you--sometime you may be able to forgive me, Fanny."
"I don't think I understand what you have come to tell me," she said
with difficulty.
"The village is ringing with the news. She wanted every one to know;
her father has come home."
"Her father!"
"Ah, you didn't guess, after all. I think we were all blind. Andrew
Bolton has come back to Brookville, a miserable, broken man."
"But you said--her father. Do you mean that Lydia Orr--"
"It wasn't a deliberate deception on her part," he interrupted
quickly. "She has always been known as Lydia Orr.
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