He was to deliver her, with scant excuse or
explanation, into the hands of strangers--cold, unfeeling strangers.
It would be the same as saying to the child that he did not care for
her any longer, that he did not love her, that he was willing to give
her up to Mr. Force without so much as a pang of regret. For he could
NOT tell her the truth. She was never to know about the carbolic acid
and the days of starvation. She was only to know that Mr. Force was to
be her daddy from this time forward and that Mr. Bingle could never be
anything more to her than Uncle Tom.
But after he told her, he cried.... Still, they were not to take her
away until the end of the week, and that was five days off.
An unsuspected astuteness in the character of Thomas Singleton Bingle
reveals itself in the declaration, now to be made for the first time
in this present history of the man: he never allowed his wards to look
upon themselves as his own children. They were taught to call him
daddy and to look upon him as a substitute supplied by God to take the
place of a real father, and by the same token Mrs.
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