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.”
“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.”