Half Brothers

by Hesba Stretton

"I told your father," he answered, "and he agreed it was better kept secret."

"How many more secret chambers in your past are there which I must never enter?" she said. "And this secret, the most sacred of them all, that you were a father before I knew you—how could you keep this from me?"

"But I did not know it," he replied. "I concealed my marriage out of fear of being disinherited by my uncle. Sophy had driven me mad by her temper, and I left her at Cortina, but I stayed here for some days expecting her to follow me. She had plenty of money, and knew very well how to manage for herself. Though I went on without her I left at each place a letter directing her where to go and what to do. Certainly I ought to have gone back, but I thought she was sulking with me. I know she was but a girl; I also was but a boy. I could not feel toward her as a man feels toward his wife; she was more like a playmate, who, if she took offense, made me offended. Then I let things drift on, afraid always of my uncle discovering my secret. But I never knew till this day that her child had lived."

"But you knew that she was dead?" asked Margaret.

"Good Heavens! yes!" he exclaimed. "I loved you the first moment I saw you, but I could never have owned it before learning that she was dead. The messenger I sent here wrote to me that she was dead, though he said nothing about a child. I suppose he intended to tell me on his arrival, but he was killed in an accident to the diligence crossing the Arlberg pass. I knew nothing of this until Philip told me just now."

"But oh! if you had but seen Sophy's son!" cried Margaret with tears, "the most miserable, the most degraded of all these peasants; a drudge, a slave to them. O Sidney! how can we atone to him for all this misery? We can never give him back his lost years."

"No," he said in a faltering voice, "nothing could ever fit him now for an English life; it would be all misery to him. We must make him happy in the only way happiness is possible for him. I will make him a rich and happy man in his own sphere, here among the people who know him. They will exalt him into a little king when he is the richest of them all, instead of the poorest. Do not speak, Margaret; listen to my reasons. He can never fill the place for which we have trained Philip so carefully. How could he be a good landlord and magistrate? How could he become the husband of such a woman as ought to be our daughter-in-law, and the mother of my heirs? It would be for his good as well as ours to leave him here. Think of Philip, of me, of the poor fellow himself. No one knows this secret except ourselves; let it be as it has always been. I cannot think of Sophy as my wife. I implore you for my sake, for Philip's sake, our first-born son, let this secret be kept."

He was still standing where he had first arrested himself, as if a gulf lay between them; and she was looking across at him with infinite sadness in her eyes. There was something miserable in her steadfast gaze, blended with profound reproach.

"And what of Andrew Goldsmith?" she asked, "the poor old man who will never cease to mourn and wonder over the fate of his lost child. Do you think I could bear for him to go into the next life, and hear for the first time, perhaps from her own lips, the story of your treachery and mine? Would not that tempt him to hatred and revenge even there? And my dear friend Rachel. Could I look her in the face and feel my heart saying, 'I know now all the sad secret that has troubled you,' and not utter it in words? O Sidney! how can you lay such a burden upon me? God is the judge of our conduct, and we are not more His children than this poor old father and your deserted son. No, we cannot keep such a secret! We must take the neglected outcast into our very hearts, and see what atonement we can make."

In all their past life Margaret had yielded her judgment to his; but Sidney felt that from what she had now said she would never swerve. It was useless to appeal to her on the score of the malignant gossip and painful dishonor he must bear himself; it was equally useless to represent the loss to Philip of rank and fortune. These were worldly considerations, and Margaret would not stoop to notice them. He must seize the only weapon of defense which lay at home.