"No, dear; you love them better than they or I deserve. I was thinking of the future, and of a time when,"--he had intended to say, "when I am no longer with you," but the depth of love and trust in her eyes made him hesitate, and finish his sentence differently--"a time when they may give you trouble," he said.
"They are good boys--that is, they mean no harm, papa. When they are older they will study more."
"Certainly," said Anne, with confidence. "I did. And as for Tita, you yourself must see, papa, what a remarkable child she is."
Douglas shaded his face with his hand. The uneasy sense of trouble which always stirred within him when he thought of his second daughter was rising to the surface now like a veiled, formless shape. "The sins of the fathers," he thought, and sighed heavily.
Anne threw her arms round his neck, and begged him to look at her. "Papa, speak to me, please. What is it that troubles you so?"
"Stand by little Tita, child, no matter what she does. Do not expect too much of her, but remember always her--her Indian blood," said the troubled father, in a low voice.
A flush crossed Anne's face. The cross of mixed blood in the younger children was never alluded to in the family circle or among their outside friends. In truth, there had been many such mixtures on the island in the old times, although comparatively few in the modern days to which William Douglas's second marriage belonged.
"Tita is French," said Anne, speaking rapidly, almost angrily.
"She is more French than Indian. Still--one never knows." Then, after a pause: "I have been a slothful father, Anne, and feel myself cowardly also in thus shifting upon your shoulders my own responsibilities. Still, what can I do? I can not re-live my life; and even if I could, perhaps I might do the same again. I do not know--I do not know. We are as we are, and tendencies dating generations back come out in us, and confuse our actions."
He spoke dreamily. His eyes were assuming that vague look with which his children were familiar, and which betokened that his mind was far away.
"You could not do anything which was not right, father," said Anne.
She was standing by his side now, and in her young strength might have been his champion against the whole world. The fire-light shining out showed a prematurely old man, whose thin form, bent drooping shoulders, and purposeless face were but Time's emphasis upon the slender, refined, dreamy youth, who, entering the domain of doubt with honest negations and a definite desire, still wandered there, lost to the world, having forgotten his first object, and loving the soft haze now for itself alone.