Not that he searched her face with a cunning scrutiny, such as her own eyes expressed; she would have found that less troublesome, as being familiar.

The anxiety, the troubled anticipation, which her words had aroused in him, were wholly free from shadow of ignoble motive; he was pained, and the frequent turning away of his look betrayed that part of the feeling was caused by observation of the woman herself, but every movement visible on his features was subdued by patience and mildness.

Suffering was a life's habit with him, and its fruit in this instance that which (spite of moral commonplace) it least often bears--self-conquest.
'You haven't told me yet,' he said, with quiet disregard of her irrelevancies, 'whether or not her father's name was Joseph Snowdon.' 'There's no call to hide it.

That was his name.

I've got letters of his writin'.