“And this is the soldier whose honor is held up to the world as a pattern!” Padilh mused.
“Still the degradation of such connection preyed upon my mind. I wanted the money to perpetuate the wealth of my house; but how be rid of the bad blood? And about this time my friend went abroad, leaving his boy in my charge. I confronted the temptation only to be overcome in the end; sent away my servants, and removing to the mountains chose others; and when these were assembled, I, myself, took occasion to call the names of the infants before them, that there might be no mistake—_no mistake_, you understand—as names may from what they have been. My own boy I called—”
“Speak, Sir Augustino!” ejaculated Padilh, sharply.
“Man, man!” cried the knight, rising and standing over against the speaker, “You have made an idiot of and imprison my own kin—the son of my half-brother. What reparation can you make?”
“Reparation! Look here, at these premature seams and wrinkles, grizzled hair and beard. Has that unsteady hand nothing to show of an iron temper shattered by sorrow?”
“Sir, your selfish sorrow blinds you. These are signs of retribution on you, not of reparation to the party injured. Don Augustino, I joined this expedition with the sole purpose of saving from ruin, if I might, a lad whom I despise for his vices; and do you think I will leave longer at your mercy the real Hilo, whom, in place of condemning, I can only pity.”
“That rests with me,” returned the maître-de-camp, with a slight sneer. “But listen to me, Don Pedro; you judge my case before it is stated.”
“Finish, sir,” answered Padilh, moodily, resuming his seat; “and heaven grant your conscience proves clearer than it seems to me likely to do.”
Inique, without comment, took up the word where the interruption occurred.
“My reasoning took this shape. My daughter is a puny thing—there is no probability of her surviving to even girlhood. What does it matter if the baby is betrothed to her brother? As for De Ladron, if he ever returns from the new world, how is he to recognize his boy, grown out of remembrance, if the child does not die—he seems pining away rapidly—before that time. Hernan Ladron I never saw again; but his infant grew strong and healthy in our change of climate, and this vexed me hourly. I had felt sure the weakly thing could not live, or the exchange would not have been made; and now, he was growing up a quiet, mild boy—pah! it made me sick to think he believed himself my son, as did all the world beside. The sense of this contrast pushed from my brain all other concern. I cursed the grasping folly which had tempted me to barter a gallant fellow, like my own boy, for an estate and this whey-faced child. However, he should go to war with me, and be cured of his girlishness. But when, at St. Quentin, he fled before the first charge of the French, cowering at my stirrup, I was frantic with rage and shame. I had no love for the boy; his very existence was a daily threat of exposure, and I beat him, as you all saw, with my sword hilt, to drive him a second time into the fight. What followed, too, you all knew. But, until this day, no mortal has learnt the yearning pity that mastered my passions and filled my breast with remorse. I believe my first resolution was to confess my infamy and restore the heir his wealth and name; but I waited until he should recover, and when I saw he was likely to remain an idiot, I changed my mind.”