ixteen, and before she died
she told me the truth. She begged me to promise to go to him, and said
that I should be happy with him. But I would not promise. I was
sixteen then, and very proud. What my mother had told me made me hate
and despise my father. I left my dead mother's side hating him; I had
a loathing for him which words couldn't express. She had omitted to
tell me his real name; I never asked her, and I was glad not to know
it. In speaking of him, of course she always said 'your father', 'your
father', and she died before she got quite to the end of her story. I
buried my mother, and then I was determined to disappear. My father
might search, but he should never find me. The thought that he would
search and search, and be unhappy for the rest of his life because he
couldn't find me, gave me a kind of joy. So I left Pisa, and I took
with me nothing but the few hundred lire which my mother had by her,
and the toy dagger--my father's gift--which she had always worn in her
hair.

"I knew that I had a voice. Everyone said that, and my mother had had
it trained up to a certain point. I knew that I could make a
reputation. I adopted the name of Rosetta Rosa, and I set to work.
Others have suffered worse things than I suffered. I made my way. Sir
Cyril Smart, the great English impresario, heard me at Genoa, and
offered me an engagement in London. Then my fortune was made. You know
that story--everyone knows it.

"Why did I not guess at once that he was my father? I cannot tell. And
not having guessed it at once, why should I ever have guessed it? I
cannot tell. The suspicion stole over me gradually. Let me say that I
always was conscious of a peculiar feeling towards Sir Cyril Smart,
partly antagonistic, yet not wholly so--a feeling I could never
understand. Then suddenly I knew, beyond any shadow of doubt, that
Sir Cyril was my father, and in the same moment he knew that I was his
daughter. You were there; you saw us in the portico of the
reception-rooms at that London hotel. I caught him staring at the
dagger in my hair just as if he was staring at a snake--I had not worn
it for some time--and the knowledge of his identity swept over me like
a--like a big wave. I hated him more than ever.

"That night, it seems, he followed us in his carriage to Alresca's
flat. When I came out of the flat he was waiting. He spoke. I won't
tell you what he said, and I won't tell you what I said. But I was
very curt and very cru