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