"Do not be hard upon your father."
"Hard! no; of course I would not be hard upon him."
"The burden he has had to bear has been very terrible. He has thought that by payments of money to this man the whole thing might be concealed. As is always the case when such payments are made, the insatiable love of money grew by what it fed on. He would have poured out every shilling into that man's hands, and would have died, himself a beggar—have died speedily too under such torments—and yet no good would have been done. The harpy would have come upon you; and you—after you had innocently assumed a title that was not your own and taken a property to which you have no right, you then would have had to own—that which your father must own now."
"If it be so," said Herbert, slowly, "it must be acknowledged."
"Just so, Mr. Fitzgerald; just so. I know you will feel that—in such matters we can only sail safely by the truth. There is no other compass worth a man's while to look at."
"Of course not," said Herbert, with hoarse voice. "One does not wish to be a robber and a thief. My cousin shall have what is his own." And then he involuntarily thought of the interview they had had on that very day. "But why did he not tell me when I spoke to him of her?" he said, with something approaching to bitterness in his voice and a slight struggle in his throat that was almost premonitory of a sob.
"Ah! it is there that I fear for you. I know what your feelings are; but think of his sorrows, and do not be hard on him."
"Ah me, ah me!" exclaimed Herbert.
"I fear that he will not be with you long. He has already endured till he is now almost past the power of suffering more. And yet there is so much more that he must suffer!"
"My poor father!"