“But,” reasoned the chaplain, “when a man is innocent, why should he not declare it? Why sit tamely under calumny? It is unwise,—nay, unsafe. You are almost a stranger here, and we in the provinces like to find out everything about everybody. If I might suggest,” and he apologized for what he called the friendly impertinence, “why not be a little less modest, a little more free with your personal history, which must have a remarkable one, and let some friend, in a quiet, delicate way, see that the truth is as widely disseminated as the slander? If you will trust me—”
“I could not choose a better pleader,” said I, gratefully; “but it is impossible.”
“How so? A man like you can have nothing to dread—nothing to conceal.”
I said again, all I could find words to say:—
“It is impossible.”
He urged no more, but I soon felt painfully certain that some involuntary distrust lurked in the good man's mind, and though he continued the same to me in all our business relations, a cloud came over our private intercourse, which was never removed.
About this time another incident occurred; You know I have a little friend here, the governor's motherless daughter, a bonnie wee child whom I meet in the garden sometimes, where we water her flowers, and have long chats about birds, beasts, and the wonders of foreign parts. I even have given a present or two to this, my child-sweetheart. Are you jealous? She has your eyes!
Well, one day when I called Lucy, she came to me slowly, with a shy, sad countenance; and I found out after some pains, that her nurse had desired her not to play with Doctor Urquhart again, because he was “naughty.”
Doctor Urquhart smilingly inquired what he had done?
The child hesitated.