“Again that contemptuous name of ‘the woman!’” ejaculated Charles, fire flashing from his eyes.
“Patience!” exclaimed Mr. Hatfield, firmly: “that woman has deceived you—duped you—entangled you, heaven alone knows how! to your utter undoing—for she is the profligate and abandoned daughter of a vile and tainted wretch—a returned transport!”
“’Tis false—false as hell!” thundered Charles, the workings of his countenance rendering him, handsome though he naturally was, hideous and horrible to behold.
“’Tis true—’tis true!” cried Mr. Hatfield, as if catching up the terrible emphasis with which his son had spoken. “Perdita Slingsby—for that is her name—is a wanton, beauteous though she may be: and it was but two days ago that I accidentally heard the full narrative of her profligacies in Sydney, from two officers quartered at Dover.”
When the dreadful accusation that his wife was a wanton had fallen upon the young man’s ears, his boiling rage was on the point of bursting forth, with all the violence of language and clenched fist, against the author of his being: but when the allusion to the officers at Dover immediately followed, the scene on the Parade suddenly flashed to his memory, and a faintness—a sensation of sickness came over him,—and he staggered to a sofa, on which he sank as if exhausted and overcome.
“Father—father,” he murmured, horrible suspicions now rising up one after another, with lightning speed, in his soul: “your words are terrible—they will kill me! And yet,” he added, in a firmer tone,as a ray of hope gleamed in upon his darkening thoughts,—“I am a fool to believe this tale! No—no—it is impossible! Perdita is pure and virtuous—and there is some dreadful mistake in all this.”
But even as he uttered these words, a secret voice seemed to whisper in his ears that he was only catching at a straw, and that he was in reality drowning in the ocean of truth which was pouring in with such sweeping rapidity and overwhelming might upon him.
“There is no mistake, my son,” said Mr. Hatfield, in a voice of profound melancholy. “Would to heaven that there were!” he added, with such deep conviction of the misery which his words implied, that all hope perished suddenly in the breast of his son. “You have become the prey to two designing women: for I heard terrible things at Dover, I can assure you! The officers to whom I ere now alluded, had recognised Perdita leaning on your arm——”
“Yes—yes: I see it all now!” exclaimed Charles, covering his face with his hands, and pressing his fingers with almost frantic violence against his throbbing brows.
“And those officers—with sorrow and grief do I tell you all this—had themselves shared the favours of Perdita in Sydney; and as for the mother of the abandoned girl—know you what has become of her?” suddenly demanded Mr. Hatfield.