I had seen it—and, after a moment's doubt, I said I had seen it.
'Did you pity those poor wretches?'
'Certainly! They deserved pity.'
'I am one of them!' she said. 'Pity
The mother! Prepared as I was for the accursed discovery, the horror of it shook me.
She left me, and started to her feet. The inherited energy showed itself in furious protest against the inherited evil. 'What does it mean?' she cried. 'I'll submit to anything. I'll bear my hard lot patiently, if you will only tell me what it means. Where does this horrid transformation of me out of myself come from? Look at my good father. In all this world there is no man so perfect as he is. And oh, how he has taught me! there isn't a single good thing that I have not learned from him since I was a little child. Did you ever hear him speak of my mother? You must have heard him. My mother was an angel. I could never be worthy of her at my best—but I have tried! I have tried! The wickedest girl in the world doesn't have worse thoughts than the thoughts that have come to me. Since when? Since Helena—oh, how can I call her by her name as if I still loved her? Since my sister—can she be my sister, I ask myself sometimes! Since my enemy—there's the word for her—since my enemy took Philip away from me. What does it mean? I have asked in my prayers—and have got no answer. I ask you. What does it mean? You must tell me! You shall tell me! What does it mean?'
Why did I not try to calm her? I had vainly tried to calm her—I who knew who her mother was, and what her mother had been.
At last, she had forced the sense of my duty on me. The simplest way of calming her was to put her back in the place by my side that she had left. It was useless to reason with her, it was impossible to answer her. I had my own idea of the one way in which I might charm Eunice back to her sweeter self.
'Let us talk of Philip,' I said.
The fierce flush on her face softened, the swelling trouble of her bosom began to subside, as that dearly-loved name passed my lips! But there was some influence left in her which resisted me.
'No,' she said; 'we had better not talk of him.'
'Why not?'
'I have lost all my courage. If you speak of Philip, you will make me cry.'
I drew her nearer to me. If she had been my own child, I don't think I could have felt for her more truly than I felt at that moment. I only looked at her; I only said:
'Cry!'
The love that was in her heart rose, and poured its tenderness into her eyes. I had longed to see the tears that would comfort her. The tears came.
There was silence between us for a while. It was possible for me to think.
In the absence of physical resemblance between parent and child, is an unfavorable influence exercised on the tendency to moral resemblance? Assuming the possibility of such a result as this, Eunice (entirely unlike her mother) must, as I concluded, have been possessed of qualities formed to resist, as well as of qualities doomed to undergo, the infection of evil. While, therefore, I resigned myself to recognize the existence of the hereditary maternal taint, I firmly believed in the counterbalancing influences for good which had been part of the girl's birthright. They had been derived, perhaps, from the better qualities in her father's nature; they had been certainly developed by the tender care, the religious vigilance, which had guarded the adopted child so lovingly in the Minister's household; and they had served their purpose until time brought with it the change, for which the tranquil domestic influences were not prepared. With the great, the vital transformation, which marks the ripening of the girl into the woman's maturity of thought and passion, a new power for Good, strong enough to resist the latent power for Evil, sprang into being, and sheltered Eunice under the supremacy of Love. Love ill-fated and ill-bestowed—but love that no profanation could stain, that no hereditary evil could conquer—the True Love that had been, and was, and would be, the guardian angel of Eunice's life.
If I am asked whether I have ventured to found this opinion on what I have observed in one instance only, I reply that I have had other opportunities of investigation, and that my conclusions are derived from experience which refers to more instances than one.
No man in his senses can doubt that physical qualities are transmitted from parents to children. But inheritance of moral qualities is less easy to trace. Here, the exploring mind finds its progress beset by obstacles. That those obstacles have been sometimes overcome I do not deny. Moral resemblances have been traced between parents and children. While, however, I admit this, I doubt the conclusion which sees, in inheritance of moral qualities, a positive influence exercised on moral destiny. There are inherent emotional forces in humanity to which the inherited influences must submit; they are essentially influences under control—influences which can be encountered and forced back. That we, who inhabit this little planet, may be the doomed creatures of fatality, from the cradle to the grave, I am not prepared to dispute. But I absolutely refuse to believe that it is a fatality with no higher origin than can be found in our accidental obligation to our fathers and mothers.
Still absorbed in these speculations, I was disturbed by a touch on my arm.
I looked up. Eunice's eyes were fixed on a shrubbery, at some little distance from us, which closed the view of the garden on that side. I noticed that she was trembling. Nothing to alarm her was visible that I could discover. I asked what she had seen to startle her. She pointed to the shrubbery.
'Look again,' she said.
This time I saw a woman's dress among the shrubs. The woman herself appeared in a moment more. It was Helena. She carried a small portfolio, and she approached us with a smile.
CHAPTER XLI. THE WHISPERING VOICE.
I looked at Eunice. She had risen, startled by her first suspicion of the person who was approaching us through
