d if ye say so; but I can't help thinkin'
what a sad thing it would be if ye were lyin' to me. I haven't had the
house watched. I only got this this mornin'. And what's written here may
not be so. I hope it isn't. But we'll not say any more about that now.
If there is anythin' in it, and ye haven't gone too far yet to save
yourself, I want ye to think of your mother and your sister and your
brothers, and be a good girl. Think of the church ye was raised in, and
the name we've got to stand up for in the world. Why, if ye were doin'
anything wrong, and the people of Philadelphy got a hold of it, the
city, big as it is, wouldn't be big enough to hold us. Your brothers
have got a reputation to make, their work to do here. You and your
sister want to get married sometime. How could ye expect to look the
world in the face and do anythin' at all if ye are doin' what this
letter says ye are, and it was told about ye?"

The old man's voice was thick with a strange, sad, alien emotion. He did
not want to believe that his daughter was guilty, even though he knew
she was. He did not want to face what he considered in his vigorous,
religious way to be his duty, that of reproaching her sternly. There
were some fathers who would have turned her out, he fancied. There were
others who might possibly kill Cowperwood after a subtle investigation.
That course was not for him. If vengeance he was to have, it must be
through politics and finance--he must drive him out. But as for doing
anything desperate in connection with Aileen, he could not think of it.

"Oh, father," returned Aileen, with considerable histrionic ability in
her assumption of pettishness, "how can you talk like this when you know
I'm not guilty? When I tell you so?"

The old Irishman saw through her make-believe with profound sadness--the
feeling that one of his dearest hopes had been shattered. He had
expected so much of her socially and matrimonially. Why, any one of a
dozen remarkable young men might have married her, and she would have
had lovely children to comfort him in his old age.

"Well, we'll not talk any more about it now, daughter," he said,
wearily. "Ye've been so much to me during all these years that I can
scarcely belave anythin' wrong of ye. I don't want to, God knows. Ye're
a grown woman, though, now; and if ye are doin' anythin' wrong I don't
suppose I could do so much to stop ye. I might turn ye out, of course,
as many a father would; but I wouldn't