Strange how he trusted Wade to avert catastrophe of Columbine's marriage! Yet such trust seemed familiar to Wade, as he reflected over past years.

Had he not wanted such trust--had he not invited it?
For twenty years no happiness had come to Wade in any sense comparable to that now secretly his, as he lived near Columbine Belllounds, divining more and more each day how truly she was his own flesh and the image of the girl he had loved and married and wronged.

Columbine was his daughter.

He saw himself in her.

And Columbine, from being strongly attracted to him and trusting in him and relying upon him, had come to love him.