"Your confidence shall be sacred, my dear young lady."
"Yesterday, Sir George, I learned something, something which concerns my father. It concerns him most nearly and most painfully. It relates to an old and buried wrong. This wrong relates to others; it relates to those now living most nearly and most painfully."
"Is it a money matter?" asked the doctor.
"It is a money matter. My father alone can set it right. I mean that during his lifetime it cannot possibly in any way be set right without his knowledge. Almost all my life, he has kept this thing a secret from me and—and—from the world. For three and twenty years it has lain in a grave. If he is told now, and the wrong cannot be repaired without his knowledge, it will come on him as a—disgrace. The question I ask of you is this: can he bear the disgrace?"
"And my answer to you, Miss Harman, is, that in his state of health the knowledge you speak of will instantly kill him."
"Then—then—God help me! what am I to do? Can the wrong never be righted?"
"My dear young lady, I am sincerely sorry for you. I cannot enter into the moral question, I can only state a fact. As your father's physician I forbid you to tell him."
"You forbid me to tell him?" said Charlotte. She got up and pulled down her veil. "Thank you," she said, holding out her hand. "I have that to go on—as my father's physician you forbid him to know?"
"I forbid it absolutely. Such a knowledge would cause instant death."