And though she is the one thing in all the world to him, he never intends to see her again for fear that his seeing her might somehow result in an accident that would destroy her happy ignorance.

Maggie, can you conceive the tremendous meaning to your father of what he believes he has created?
And can you conceive the tremendous difference between the dream he lives upon, and the reality ?" She was white, staring, wilted.

For once all the defiance, self-confidence, bravado, melted out of her, and she was just an appalled and frightened young girl.
After a moment she managed to repeat the question Larry had ignored: "Is my real father--still in prison ?" "You'd like to see your real father ?" he asked her.
"I think--I'd like to have a glimpse of him," she breathed.
Larry, just before this, had noted Joe Ellison in his blue overalls and wide straw hat cleaning out a bank of young dahlias a distance up the bluff.

He now took Maggie's arm and guided her in that direction.
"See that man there working among the dahlias ?--the man who once brought you a bunch of roses?
Joe Ellison is his name.

He's the man I've been talking about--your father." He felt her quivering under his hand for a moment, and heard her breath come in swift, spasmodic pants.