"You have been neither imprudent nor wrong," answered Jacob, laying his hand on the bent head of the youth. "I am a plain man, but you will find in me a safer counsellor than you imagine—a wiser one—though not more sincere—than your good aunt."
"Then you know my aunt?" cried Robert, profoundly astonished.
"It would have been well had you confided even in her, on Thanksgiving night, when you were so near confessing the difficulties that seem so terrible to you. A few words then, might have relieved all your troubles."
"Then Mr. Leicester has told—has betrayed me to—to his servant, I would not have believed it!" Robert grew pale as he spoke; there was shame and terror in his face; deep bitterness in his tone; he was suffering the keen pangs which a first proof of treachery brings to youth.
"No, you wrong Mr. Leicester there—he has not betrayed you, never will, probably, nor do I know the exact nature of your anxieties."
"But who are you then? An hour ago I could have answered this question, or thought so. Now, you bewilder me; I can scarcely recognize any look or tone about you—which is the artificial? which the real?"
"Both are real; I was what you have hitherto seen me, years ago. I am what you see now; but I can at will throw off the present and identify myself with the past. You see, Robert Otis, I give confidence when I ask it—a breath of what you have seen or heard to-day, repeated to Mr. Leicester, would send me from his service. But I do not fear to trust you!"
"There is no cause of fear—I never betrayed anything in my life—only convince me that you mean no evil to him."
"I only mean to prevent evil! and I will!"