I consented to have you in the family, provided that you should be
reared as his niece, and never be told of your parentage. He replied,
with exceeding bitterness, that he was not anxious that his child should
grow up to hate her father for his lack of faith in her mother, and his
deep injustice to her.
"We went to San Francisco to live, but I hated you even more bitterly
than I had hated your mother, and every caress which I saw my husband
lavish upon you was like a poisoned dagger in my heart. But he never
knew it--he never knew that I had had anything to do with the tragedy
of his life, until more than a year after our marriage.
"My own child--a little girl--was born about ten months after that event;
but she did not live, and this only served to make me more bitter against
you; for, although my husband professed to feel great sorrow that she
could not have lived to be a comfort to us and a companion to you, I knew
that he would never have loved her with the peculiar tenderness which he
always manifested toward you.
"When your mother fled from him and Paris she left everything that he
had lavished upon her save what clothing she needed and money to defray
necessary expenses during the next few months; and so after my marriage
I found pocketed away among some old clothing belonging to my husband the
keepsakes that he had given to her and also their marriage certificate.
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