"They must know, and they shall."
"Well, it may be sooner than anybody thinks. The position is clear enough: I might have married and still kept the five thousand, because the lawyers said that my dead wife's wish wouldn't hold water in law; but I didn't know that till 'twas too late, and your first child had come. Then we talked it out, and you was content and so was I. Now there are three of them, and though I'd face the music so brave as you and go to my grave spurned by all men, if necessary, what would better it for them? Nothing short of an Act of Parliament would make 'em legitimate now. I kept the condition of my dead wife, because you urged me to do it and weren't feared of the consequences; but now, though I can make you my lawful wife, I can't make them my lawful children, and therefore surely 'tis better they shall never know they are my children at all?"
"'Twas a promise," she said, "and I hold you to it. I'm fixed on it that they shall know."
"Very well, so it shall be, then. Only for God's sake look to it for everybody's sake that it don't get out after, and ruin you all. I shouldn't sleep in my grave if I thought the life-long secret was common knowledge."
"You can trust them to keep it, I should think."
"The girls, yes; but Heathman's so easy and careless."
"Suppose you was to marry me even now, Nat, would that help?"
"I'll do it, as I've always said I'll do it. But that means I should be in honour bound to pay five thousand to my first wife's people. Well, I can't—I can't at this moment—not a penny of it. Just now I'm a good deal driven. In a year or two I might, no doubt; but there's that tells me a year or two——"
He put up his hand to his throat.
"You swore to me on your oath that you were better, last time you came down by night."