She paused a long time with her head bowed upon her hands. At last she looked up, and stretched her hand out to him, and said—
“Mark, is this all that you require of me?”
“No; your father is imbecile in mind, and no longer capable of directing even his most trivial affairs. You must apply to the court for the necessary authority, and take the control of his estate. I will remain here a few weeks longer to aid you in obtaining it, and in settling up the accounts. You will find many a just debt which nevertheless cannot legally be recovered of him. You must pay them all without flinching, though the settlement should leave you penniless. You must right every wrong that he has done, or others suffered through him.”
He had not taken the hand she had held out to him a few minutes before. It had fallen unheeded at her side. Yet now she laid it in his, as she asked:
“And if I do all this that you demand, then will you give me back regard?”
He looked disappointed and annoyed, and dropped her hand, as he replied:
“If the fountain be not sweet, how shall the stream be? If the motive be not pure, how shall the act be? India! do not seek to make a trader’s bargain with heaven, or even with me! I have not asked you to do this from the fear of any punishment, or the hope of any reward; I have not required it at your hands for God’s sake, least of all for mine; I have simply demanded it in the name of the RIGHT! India! there is a sentiment expressed, a principle laid down, or a prayer made, by one of our poets, which, for sublime simplicity, transcends everything not written in the Holy Scriptures. It is contained in the lines of Pope’s Universal Prayer:
“‘What conscience dictates to be done,
Or warns me not to do—
This teach me more than hell to shun,