“I never doubted that,” said Michael Ivanovich with a bitter smile.

“She is your daughter.”

“She was⁠—but my dear Aline, why talk about this?”

“Michael, dear, won’t you see her? I only wanted to say, that the one who is to blame⁠—”

Prince Michael Ivanovich flushed; his face became cruel.

“For heaven’s sake, let us stop. I have suffered enough. I have now but one desire, and that is to put her in such a position that she will be independent of others, and that she shall have no further need of communicating with me. Then she can live her own life, and my family and I need know nothing more about her. That is all I can do.”

“Michael, you say nothing but ‘I’! She, too, is ‘I.’ ”