Page:Harold Macgrath--The girl in his house.djvu/156

 In the little village cemetery he was made cognizant with another phase of Bordman's character—a well-kept grave, with a simple slab of marble above it:

The mother of the woman he loved—Doris's mother!

Armitage could not get away from the impression that he was walking and moving in a dream. Nothing that he did was real. Doris's father—a drab little man, who wanted to be handsome and strong! A dozen times Armitage, during the solemn moment when the clods fell upon the pine box—Armitage wanted to cry out for some one to wake him. He could not stand this dream any longer! The irony of it all, and the tremendous burden he must carry henceforth! For Doris must never know. She must go through life weaving the most wonderful romances around a personage that had existed only in her real father's imagination. It was all horribly cruel. He would never be able to approach her on