“No. I found it in his bedroom and took it. Oh, father—--“
The issues for each had deepened. The meaning of that exclamation was understood by him: it pleaded with him for Martin.
“I have always tried to be a good father to you both,” he said.
Then all that Helen had suppressed and striven not to have thought for years rose to the surface on this her first day of liberty. She had not let herself know how heavy the yoke had been till now, when her manumission was signed. But Martin still was in subjection. She stood up.
“I know that,” she said. “If I had not always known that I should not have cared. It is just that which makes it so sad. But we have both been afraid of you. We have concealed things from you because we were afraid of your displeasure. You know, Martin is awfully timid; he shrinks from what hurts. And we do not tell you everything even now.”
The thrill of pleasure that her unasked confidence had given him had pretty well died out. He felt also that there was something more coming.
“You or Martin?” he asked.
The tide was irresistible, sweeping her away. A thing which must be horribly painful to him had to be told her father to-day, to-morrow, or some time, and she suddenly knew that she must tell him now. Besides, here was a burden she could voluntarily bear for her lover, a pain, a difficult thing she could take on herself. And, woman all through, as she would have saved him anything from a toothache to a heartache, especially if the saving it from him meant the transference of it to her, she felt, in spite of the pain, an inward thrill and warmth at the thought that it would be spared to Frank. A few minutes before, when Aunt Clara left the room, she would have gone too, if she had known that the little confession would lead on to this, but now the burning of her love, as when a furnace-door is thrown open, glowed with a whiteness that consumed all else.
“I, anyhow,” she said. “I have something which you must be told. And I choose to tell you instead of Frank.”
Her father got up also facing her. He was very grave, very still.