But she did not move nor cry out, did not even gasp, only sat still with the dumb horror of it all filling her heart, until she felt as if she would never feel happy again.

Her father had always seemed to her the noblest of men, and she had revered him so, because he always stood for what was right and true.

Then some instinct told her that he must be suffering horribly too, and because she could not speak she slid her warm fingers into his trembling hand and held it fast.
"Thank you, dear, I felt I could trust you," he said simply, and the words braced Katherine for bearing what had to come, more than anything else could have done.
"What is it you want me to know ?" she asked, for he had lain for some minutes without speech, as if the task he had set himself was harder than he could perform.
"I wanted to tell you about the wrong I did Selincourt," the sick man said in a reluctant tone.

He had brought himself to the point of confiding in his daughter, yet even now he shrank from it as if fearing to lower himself in her eyes.

"We were clerks in one business house, only Selincourt was above me, and taking a much higher salary; but if anything happened to move him, I knew that his desk would be offered to me.