"It was hard to me to write that letter, for I longed to see her bonny face again. But I thought it was my duty. I thought so then; but I think, now, it was pride.
"From time to time she wrote to me. I learned that you still refused to see your son, and I gathered, though she did not say much of this, that things were going badly with them. At last, she wrote that her husband was ill--very ill, she feared. He had, in vain, tried to get employment. I don't think he was naturally strong, and the anxiety had broken him down. Then I went up to London at once, and found them, in a little room, without the necessaries of life. I brought them down home, and nursed him for three months, till he died.
"A week later, Aggie was born. Ten days afterwards, I laid her mother by the side of her father. No answer had come to the letters he had written to you, while he had been ill, though in the later ones he had told you that he was dying. So, I looked upon the child as mine.
"Things had gone badly with me. I had been able to take no lodgers, while they were with me. I had got into debt, and even could I have cleared myself, I could not well have kept the house on, without a woman to look after it. I was restless, too, and longed to be moving about. So I sold off the furniture, paid my debts, and laid by the money that remained, for the child's use in the future.
"I had, some time before, met an old comrade travelling the country with a show. I happened to meet him again, just as I was leaving, and he told me the name of a man, in London, who sold such things. I left the child, for a year, with some people I knew, a few miles out of Southampton; came up to London, bought a show, and started. It was lonely work, at first; but, after a year, I fetched the child away, and took her round the country with me, and for four years had a happy time of it.
"I had chosen this part of the country, and, after a time, I became uneasy in my mind, as to whether I was doing right; and whether, for the child's sake, I ought not to tell you that she was alive, and offer to give her up, if you were willing to take her. I heard how your son's death had changed you, and thought that, maybe, you would like to take his daughter; but, before bringing her to you, I thought she should have a better education than I had time to give her, and that she should be placed with a lady, so that, if you took her, you need not be ashamed of her manners.
"I hoped you would not take her. I wanted to keep her for myself; but my duty to her was clear.
"And now, squire, you know all about it. I have been wrong to keep her so long from you, I grant; but I can only say that I have done my duty, as far as I could, and that, though I have made many mistakes, my conscience is clear, that I did the best, as far as it seemed to me at the time."
[Chapter 5]: A Quiet Time.
As the sergeant was telling the story, the squire had sat with his face shaded by his hand, but more than one tear had dropped heavily on the table.