“First tell me,” he went on, “how are they?” and he pointed upwards with his thumb.
“My wife and two of the boys are beyond hope,” my father answered, with a groan. “I do not know how it will go with the third. The Lord’s will be done!”
“The Lord’s will be done,” the squire echoed, solemnly. “And now, Quatermain, listen—my wife’s gone.”
“Gone!” my father answered. “Who with?”
“With that foreign cousin of hers. It seems from a letter she left me that she always cared for him, not for me. She married me because she thought me a rich English milord. Now she has run through my property, or most of it, and gone. I don’t know where. Luckily, she did not care to encumber her new career with the child; Stella is left to me.”
“That is what comes of marrying a papist, Carson,” said my father. That was his fault; he was as good and charitable a man as ever lived, but he was bigoted. “What are you going to do—follow her?”
He laughed bitterly in answer.
“Follow her!” he said; “why should I follow her? If I met her I might kill her or him, or both of them, because of the disgrace they have brought upon my child’s name. No, I never want to look upon her face again. I trusted her, I tell you, and she has betrayed me. Let her go and find her fate. But I am going too. I am weary of my life.”
“Surely, Carson, surely,” said my father, “you do not mean——”
“No, no; not that. Death comes soon enough. But I will leave this civilized world which is a lie. We will go right away into the wilds, I and my child, and hide our shame. Where? I don’t know where. Anywhere, so long as there are no white faces, no smooth educated tongues——”