"
The girl's lips tightened, and she drew a little breath through her
teeth. Davenant hesitated.
"You know all about that company affair. Of course they made your
father the butt of the whole thing, although he was little more
than a tool. He was sent to prison for seven years. You were only
a child then and your mother was dead. Well, when the seven years
were up, your relations and mine too, Ernestine, concocted what I
have always considered an ill-begotten and a miserably selfish plot.
Your father, unfortunately, yielded to them, for your sake. You
were told that he had died in prison. He did not. He lived through
his seven years there, and when he came out did so in another name
and went abroad on the morning of the day of his liberation."
"Good God!" she cried. "And now!"
"He is dead," Davenant answered hastily, "but only just lately.
Wait a minute. You are going to be furiously angry. I know it,
and I don't blame you. Only listen for a moment. The scheme was
hatched up between my father and your two uncles. I have always
hated it and always protested against it. Remember that and be
fair to me. This is how they reasoned. Your father's health,
they said, was ruined, and if he lives the seven years what is
there left for him when he comes out? He was a man, as you know,
of aristocratic and fastidious tastes.
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