“Go on, Ralph: speak as you please.”
“Very good. First of all, I understand that you took a fancy to some shopkeeper’s daughter—so far, mind, I don’t blame you: I’ve spent time very pleasantly among the ladies of the counter myself. But in the second place, I’m told that you actually married the girl! I don’t wish to be hard upon you, my good fellow, but there was an unparalleled insanity about that act, worthier of a patient in Bedlam than of my brother. I am not quite sure whether I understand exactly what virtuous behaviour is; but if that was virtuous behaviour—there! there! don’t look shocked. Let’s have done with the marriage, and get on. Well, you made the girl your wife; and then innocently consented to a very queer condition of waiting a year for her (virtuous behaviour again, I suppose!) At the end of that time—don’t turn away your head, Basil! I may be a scamp; but I am not blackguard enough to make a joke—either in your presence, or out of it—of this part of the story. I will pass it over altogether, if you like; and only ask you a question or two. You see, my father either could not or would not speak plainly of the worst part of the business; and you know him well enough to know why. But somebody must be a little explicit, or I can do nothing. About that man? You found the scoundrel out? Did you get within arm’s length of him?”
I told my brother of the struggle with Mannion in the Square.
He heard me almost with his former schoolboy delight, when I had succeeded, to his satisfaction, in a feat of strength or activity. He jumped off the bed, and seized both my hands in his strong grasp; his face radiant, his eyes sparkling. “Shake hands, Basil! Shake hands, as we haven’t shaken hands yet: this makes amends for everything! One word more, though, about that fellow; where is he now?”
“In the hospital.”
Ralph laughed heartily, and jumped back on the bed. I remembered Mannion’s letter, and shuddered as I thought of it.
“The next question is about the girl,” said my brother. “What has become of her? Where was she all the time of your illness?”
“At her father’s house; she is there still.”
“Ah, yes! I see; the old story; innocent, of course. And her father backs her, doesn’t he? To be sure, that’s the old story too. I have got at our difficulty now; we are threatened with an exposure, if you don’t acknowledge her. Wait a minute! Have you any evidence against her, besides your own?”
“I have a letter, a long letter from her accomplice, containing a confession of his guilt and hers.”
“She is sure to call that confession a conspiracy. It’s of no use to us, unless we dared to go to law—and we daren’t. We must hush the thing up at any price; or it will be the death of my father. This is a case for money, just as I thought it would be. Mr. and Miss Shopkeeper have got a large assortment of silence to sell; and we must buy it of them, over the domestic counter, at so much a yard. Have you been there yet, Basil, to ask the price and strike the bargain?”
“I was at the house, yesterday.”
“The deuce you were! And who did you see?—The father? Did you bring him to terms? did you do business with Mr. Shopkeeper?”
“His manner was brutal: his language, the language of a bully—?”
“So much the better. Those men are easiest dealt with: if he will only fly into a passion with me, I engage for success beforehand. But the end—how did it end?”
“As it began:—in threats on his part, in endurance on mine.”
“Ah! we’ll see how he likes my endurance next: he’ll find it rather a different sort of endurance from yours. By the by, Basil, what money had you to offer him?”
“I made no offer to him then. Circumstances happened which rendered me incapable of thinking of it. I intended to go there again, today; and if money would bribe him to silence, and save my family from sharing the dishonour which has fallen on me, to abandon to him the only money I have of my own—the little income left me by our mother.”
“Do you mean to say that your only resource is in that wretched trifle, and that you ever really intend to let it go, and start in the world without a rap? Do you mean to say that my father gave you up without making the smallest provision for you, in such a mess as yours? Hang it! do him justice. He has been hard enough on you, I know; but he can’t have coolly turned you over to ruin in that way.”
“He offered me money, at parting; but with such words of contempt and insult that I would have died rather than take it. I told him that, unaided by his purse, I would preserve him, and preserve his family from the infamous consequences of my calamity—though I sacrificed my own happiness and my own honour forever in doing it. And I go today to make that sacrifice. The loss of the little I have to depend on, is the least part of it. He may not see his injustice in doubting
