You know perfectly well that I've kept the word I gave you ten years ago, and that I have been dead to her as she has been to me." "I know," said the colonel, "that within the last three months I have paid away my last cent to keep the mouth of an infernal scoundrel shut who KNOWS that you are her mother, and threatens to expose her to her friends.

I know that I'm dying here of an old wound that I got when I shut the mouth of another hound who was ready to bark at her two years after you disappeared.

I know that between you and her I've let my old nigger die of a broken heart, because I couldn't keep him to suffer with me, and I know that I'm here a pauper on the State.

I know that, Kate, and when I say it I don't regret it.

I've kept my word to YOU, and, by the Eternal, your daughter's worth it! For if there ever was a fair and peerless creature--it's your child!" "And she--a rich woman--unless she squandered the fortune I gave her--lets you lie here!" said the woman grimly.
"She don't know it." "She SHOULD know it! Have you quarreled ?" She was looking at him keenly.
"She distrusts me, because she half suspects the secret, and I hadn't the heart to tell her all." "All?
What does she know?
What does this man know?
What has been told her ?" she said rapidly.
"She only knows that the name she has taken she has no right to." "Right to?
Why, it was written on the Trust--Yerba Buena." "No, not that.