“You surely mean to go back again one of these days?” said Upton.
“Never, never!” said he, solemnly. “I have made all my arrangements for the future,—every disposition regarding my property; I have neglected nothing, so far as I know, of those claims which, in the shape of relationship, the world has such reverence for; and now I bethink me of myself. I shall have to consult you, however, about this boy,” said he, faltering in the words. “The objection I once entertained to his bearing my name exists no longer; he may call himself Massy, if he will. The chances are,” added he, in a lower and more feeling voice, “that he rejects a name that will only remind him of a wrong!”
“My dear Glencore,” said Upton, with real tenderness, “do I apprehend you aright? Are you at last convinced that you have been unjust? Has the moment come in which your better judgment rises above the evil counsels of prejudice and passion—”
“Do you mean, am I assured of her innocence?” broke in Glencore, wildly. “Do you imagine, if I were so, that I could withhold my hand from taking a life so infamous and dishonored as mine? The world would have no parallel for such a wretch! Mark me, Upton!” cried he, fiercely, “there is no torture I have yet endured would equal the bare possibility of what you hint at.”
“Good Heavens! Glencore, do not let me suppose that selfishness has so marred and disfigured your nature that this is true. Bethink you of what you say. Would it not be the crowning glory of your life to repair a dreadful wrong, and acknowledge before the world that the fame you had aspersed was without stain or spot?”
“And with what grace should I ask the world to believe me? Is it when expiating the shame of a falsehood that I should call upon men to accept me as truthful? Have I not proclaimed her, from one end of Europe to the other, dishonored? If she be absolved, what becomes of me?”
“This is unworthy of you, Glencore,” said Upton, severely; “nor, if illness and long suffering had not impaired your judgment, had you ever spoken such words. I say once more, that if the day came that you could declare to the world that her fame had no other reproach than the injustice of your own unfounded jealousy, that day would be the best and the proudest of your life.”
“The proud day that published me a calumniator of all that I was most pledged to defend,—the deliberate liar against the obligation of the holiest of all contracts! You forget, Upton,—but I do not forget,—that it was by this very argument you once tried to dissuade me from my act of vengeance. You told me—ay, in words that still ring in my ears—to remember that if by any accident or chance her innocence might be proven, I could never avail myself of the indication without first declaring my own unworthiness to profit by it; that if the Wife stood forth in all the pride of purity, the Husband would be a scoff and a shame throughout the world!”
“When I said so,” said Upton, “it was to turn you from a path that could not but lead to ruin; I endeavored to deter you by an appeal that interested even your selfishness.”
“Your subtlety has outwitted itself, Upton,” said Glencore, with a bitter irony; “it is not the first instance on record where blank cartridge has proved fatal!”