There was the whole truth now, declared openly and in the most simple words, and there was no longer any possibility that he should doubt. It was very terrible,—a terrible tragedy. But to him at this present moment the part most frightful was his and her present position. What should he do for her? How should he counsel her? In what way so act that he might best assist her without compromising that high sense of right and wrong which in him was a second nature. He felt at the moment that he would still give his last shilling to rescue her,—only that there was the property! Let the heavens fall, justice must be done there. Even a wretch such as Joseph Mason must have that which was clearly his own.
As she spoke those last words, she had risen from the sofa, and was now standing before him resting with her hands upon the table, like a prisoner in the dock.
"What!" he said; "with your own hands?"
"Yes; with my own hands. When he would not do justice to my baby, when he talked of that other being the head of his house, I did it, with my own hands,—during the night."
"And you wrote the names,—yourself?"
"Yes; I wrote them all." And then there was again silence in the room; but she still stood, leaning on the table, waiting for him to speak her doom.
He turned away from the spot in which he had confronted her and walked to the window. What was he to do? How was he to help her? And how was he to be rid of her? How was he to save his daughter from further contact with a woman such as this? And how was he to bid his daughter behave to this woman as one woman should behave to another in her misery? Then too he had learned to love her himself,—had yearned to call her his own; and though this in truth was a minor sorrow, it was one which at the moment added bitterness to the others. But there she stood, still waiting her doom, and it was necessary that that doom should be spoken by him.
"If this can really be true—"
"It is true. You do not think that a woman would falsely tell such a tale as that against herself!"
"Then I fear—that this must be over between you and me."