“None, my darling,” he answered. “The thing that made me talk to you so against secrets when you were a child, was, that I had one myself--one that was, and is, eating the heart out of me. But that woman shall not know and you be ignorant! I will not have a secret with _her!_--Leave me now, please, little one.”
“May I take the letter with me, uncle?” I asked.
He rubbed his forehead with a still trembling hand. The trembling of that beloved hand filled me with such a divine sense of pity, that for the first time I seemed to know God, causing in me that consciousness! The whole human mother was roused in me for my uncle. I would die, I would kill to save him! The worm was welcome to swallow me! My very being was a well of loving pity, pouring itself out over that trembling hand.
He took up the letter, gave it to me, and turned his face away with a groan. I left the room in strange exaltation--the exaltation of merest love.
I went to the study, and there read the hateful letter.
Here it is. Having transcribed it, I shall destroy it.
“Sir,--For one who persists in coming between a woman and her son, who will blame the mother if she cast aside forbearance! I would have spared you as hitherto; I will spare you no longer. You little thought when you crossed me who I was--the one in the world in whose power you lay! I would perish ever-lastingly rather than permit one of my blood to marry one of yours. My words are strong; you are welcome to call them unladylike; but you shall not doubt what I mean. You know perfectly that, if I denounce you as a murderer, I can prove what I say; and as to my silence for so many years, I am able thoroughly to account for it. I shall give you no further warning. You know where my son is: if he is not in my house within two days, I shall have you arrested. _I have made up my mind._
“Whoever be the father, she's the mother of lies!” I exclaimed.--“My uncle--the best and gentlest of men, a murderer!”
I laughed aloud in my indignation and wrath.
But, though the woman was a liar, she must have something to say with a show of truth! How else would she dare intimidation with such a man? How else could her threat have so wrought upon my uncle? What did she know, or imagine she knew? What could be the something on which she founded her lie?--That my uncle was going to tell me, nor did I dread hearing his story. No revelation would lower him in my eyes! Of that I was confident. But I little thought how long it would be before it came, or what a terrible tale it would prove.