"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.