'Because she evidently remembered you.'
The lady had no doubt looked at me twice. If this meant that my face was familiar to her, I could only repeat what I have already said. Never, to my knowledge, had I seen her before.
Leading the way upstairs, Miss Helena apologized for taking me into her father's bedroom. 'He is able to sit up in an armchair,' she said; 'and he might do more, as I think, if he would exert himself. He won't exert himself. Very sad. Would you like to look at your room, before you see my father? It is quite ready for you. We hope'—she favored me with a fascinating smile, devoted to winning my heart when her interests required it—'we hope you will pay us a long visit; we look on you as one of ourselves.'
I thanked her, and said I would shake hands with my old friend before I went to my room. We parted at the bedroom door.
It is out of my power to describe the shock that overpowered me when I first saw the Minister again, after the long interval of time that had separated us. Nothing that his daughter said, nothing that I myself anticipated, had prepared me for that lamentable change. For the moment, I was not sufficiently master of myself to be able to speak to him. He added to my embarrassment by the humility of his manner, and the formal elaboration of his apologies.
'I feel painfully that I have taken a liberty with you,' he said, 'after the long estrangement between us—for which my want of Christian forbearance is to blame. Forgive it, sir, and forget it. I hope to show that necessity justifies my presumption, in subjecting you to a wearisome journey for my sake.'
Beginning to recover myself, I begged that he would make no more excuses. My interruption seemed to confuse him.
'I wished to say,' he went on, 'that you are the one man who can understand me. There is my only reason for asking to see you, and looking forward as I do to your advice. You remember the night—or was it the day?—before that miserable woman was hanged? You were the only person present when I agreed to adopt the poor little creature, stained already (one may say) by its mother's infamy. I think your wisdom foresaw what a terrible responsibility I was undertaking; you tried to prevent it. Well! well! you have been in my confidence—you only. Mind! nobody in this house knows that one of the two girls is not really my daughter. Pray stop me, if you find me wandering from the point. My wish is to show that you are the only man I can open my heart to. She—' He paused, as if in search of a lost idea, and left the sentence uncompleted. 'Yes,' he went on, 'I was thinking of my adopted child. Did I ever tell you that I baptized her myself? and by a good Scripture name too—Eunice. Ah, sir, that little helpless baby is a grown-up girl now; of an age to inspire love, and to feel love. I blush to acknowledge it; I have behaved with a want of self-control, with a cowardly weakness.—No! I am, indeed, wandering this time. I ought to have told you first that I have been brought face to face with the possibility of Eunice's marriage. And, to make it worse still, I can't help liking the young man. He comes of a good family—excellent manners, highly educated, plenty of money, a gentleman in every sense of the word. And poor little Eunice is so fond of him! Isn't it dreadful to be obliged to check her dearly-loved Philip? The young gentleman's name is Philip. Do you like the name? I say I am obliged to cheek her sweetheart in the rudest manner, when all he wants to do is to ask me modestly for my sweet Eunice's hand. Oh, what have I not suffered, without a word of sympathy to comfort me, before I had courage enough to write to you! Shall I make a dreadful confession? If my religious convictions had not stood in my way, I believe I should have committed suicide. Put yourself in my place. Try to see yourself shrinking from a necessary explanation, when the happiness of a harmless girl—so dutiful, so affectionate—depended on a word of kindness from your lips. And that word you are afraid to speak! Don't take offense, sir; I mean myself, not you. Why don't you say something?' he burst out fiercely, incapable of perceiving that he had allowed me no opportunity of speaking to him. 'Good God! don't you understand me, after all?'
The signs of mental confusion in his talk had so distressed me, that I had not been composed enough to feel sure of what he really meant, until he described himself as 'shrinking from a necessary explanation.' Hearing those words, my knowledge of the circumstances helped me; I realized what his situation really was.
'Compose yourself,' I said, 'I understand you at last.'
He had suddenly become distrustful. 'Prove it,' he muttered, with a furtive look at me. 'I want to be satisfied that you understand my position.'
'This is your position,' I told him. 'You are placed between two deplorable alternatives. If you tell this young gentleman that Miss Eunice's mother was a criminal hanged for murder, his family—even if he himself doesn't recoil from it—will unquestionably forbid the marriage; and your adopted daughter's happiness will be the sacrifice.'
'True!' he said. 'Frightfully true! Go on.'
'If, on the other hand, you sanction the marriage, and conceal the truth, you commit a deliberate act of deceit; and you leave the lives of the young couple at the mercy of a possible discovery, which might part husband and wife—cast a slur on their children—and break up the household.'
He shuddered while he listened to me. 'Come to the end of it,' he cried.
I had no more to say, and I was obliged to answer him to that effect.
'No more to say?' he replied. 'You have not told me yet what I most want to know.'
I did a rash thing; I asked what it was that he most wanted to know.
'Can't you see it for yourself?' he demanded indignantly. 'Suppose you were put between those two alternatives which you mentioned just now.'
'Well?'
'What would you do, sir, in my place? Would you own the disgraceful truth—before the marriage—or run the risk, and keep the horrid story to yourself?'
Either way, my reply might lead to serious consequences. I hesitated.
He threatened me with his poor feeble hand. It was only the anger of a moment; his humor changed to supplication. He reminded me piteously of bygone days: 'You used to be a kind-hearted man. Has age hardened you? Have you no pity left for your old friend? My poor heart is sadly in want of a word of wisdom, spoken kindly.'
Who could have resisted this? I took his hand: 'Be at ease, dear Minister. In your place I should run the risk, and keep that horrid story to myself.'
He sank back gently in his chair. 'Oh, the relief of it!' he said. 'How can I thank you as I ought for quieting my mind?'
