“Listen, Baron Elverton, while I tell you. More years ago than I care to count, the sinful woman who confronts you now for the last time was a sinless child—the only child of a poor old widowed country curate. She became, at seventeen years of age, the nursery governess of your little sisters. You saw and admired her beauty. You made her your wife by a secret marriage.”
“Woman! why do you recall these follies after all these years?”
“To lead to the end! You made Harriette Newton your wife by a clandestine marriage, but you were a few months under age, and the marriage was not binding unless you should choose to make it so after your majority. Alas! before that time arrived you had repented of your ‘low’ marriage, and grown tired of the humble woman whose peace you had destroyed. When your secret was discovered you humbled yourself to your offended father; you promised never to see the ‘girl’ again; you suffered her to be sent back with ignominy to break the heart of her father, for the poor old curate never held up his head again; he died before his daughter became a mother—”
“Harriette, I was a boy then—”
“A boy with the hardened heart of a veteran sinner! Your father died; you came into your estates; and I, with my daughter in my arms, threw myself at your feet, and entreated you to acknowledge us as your wife and child—”
“And then I would have done it, Harriette.”
“Aye, for a moment nature made herself heard above the clamor of pride, ambition, selfishness! You would have yielded, you would then and there have restored us to our places in your heart and home, but you were prevented!”
“Aye, I was prevented!”
“And who was it that hindered you in that act of justice? Your bosom friend and confidant, Henry Lord Leaton! He it was who, in that moment of your better feelings, laid his hand upon your shoulder, and bade you pause and reflect; told you that marriage with an inferior was always a snare and a curse to both parties; that I was unfitted for the sphere of life to which you would have raised me; that by such a marriage you would be humiliated and wretched, and I misplaced and miserable; bade you remember the fate of the ‘Ladye of Burleigh,’ and take warning, and advised you to repudiate and provide for us! ‘Provide for us!’ I think even he saw that I would have seen my child slowly starve to death in my arms rather than have taken one crumb from the father who refused to acknowledge her as his legitimate daughter!” exclaimed the woman, with her eyes suddenly kindling.
“He was a high-toned, honorable man; he meant well by you and me.”