“Oh,” broke out the girl, since her sex must now be declared, “oh,” she exclaimed, with a passionate sob, “what a fool I have been! Only do not think worse of me than I deserve. The man did deceive me; he did not think I should take him at his word, and follow him here, or his wife would not have appeared. I should not have known he had one and—and—” here her voice was choked under her passion.
“But now you have discovered the truth, let us thank Heaven that you are saved from shame and misery. I must despatch a telegram to your uncle: give me his address.”
“No, no.”
“There is not a ‘No’ possible in this case, my child. Your reputation and your future must be saved. Leave me to explain all to your uncle. He is your guardian. I must send for him; nay, nay, there is no option. Hate me now for enforcing your will: you will thank me hereafter. And listen, young lady; if it does pain you to see your uncle, and encounter his reproaches, every fault must undergo its punishment. A brave nature undergoes it cheerfully, as a part of atonement. You are brave. Submit, and in submitting rejoice!”
There was something in Kenelm’s voice and manner at once so kindly and so commanding that the wayward nature he addressed fairly succumbed. She gave him her uncle’s address, “John Bovill, Esq., Oakdale, near Westmere.” And after giving it, she fixed her eyes mournfully upon her young adviser, and said with a simple, dreary pathos, “Now, will you esteem me more, or rather despise me less?”
She looked so young, nay, so childlike, as she thus spoke, that Kenelm felt a parental inclination to draw her on his lap and kiss away her tears. But he prudently conquered that impulse, and said, with a melancholy half-smile,—
“If human beings despise each other for being young and foolish, the sooner we are exterminated by that superior race which is to succeed us on earth the better it will be. Adieu, till your uncle comes.”
“What! you leave me here—alone?”
“Nay, if your uncle found me under the same roof, now that I know you are his niece, don’t you think he would have a right to throw me out of the window? Allow me to practise for myself the prudence I preach to you. Send for the landlady to show you your room, shut yourself in there, go to bed, and don’t cry more than you can help.”
Kenelm shouldered the knapsack he had deposited in a corner of the room, inquired for the telegraph-office, despatched a telegram to Mr. Bovill, obtained a bedroom at the Commercial Hotel, and fell asleep, muttering these sensible words,—