"It will be a severe penance," she rejoined; "but I will do whatever you think is right. If I could have all the suffering, I would not murmur. But Gerald will suffer and Eulalia will suffer. And for some weeks I have made you unhappy. How sad you look, dear."
"I am a very happy man, Rosa, compared with what I was before you told me this strange story. But I am very serious, because I want to be sure of doing what is right in these difficult premises. As for Gerald and Eulalia, their acquaintance has been very short, and I don't think they have spoken of love to each other. Their extreme youth is also a favorable circumstance. Rochefoucault says, 'Absence extinguishes small passions, and increases great ones.' My own experience proved the truth of one part of the maxim; but perhaps Gerald is of a more volatile temperament, and will realize the other portion."
"And do you still love me as well as you ever did?" she asked.
He folded her more closely as he whispered, "I do, darling." And for some minutes she wept in silence on his generous breast.
CHAPTER XXXI.
That evening young Fitzgerald was closeted two or three hours with Mr. King. Though the disclosure was made with the utmost delicacy and caution, the young man was startled and shocked; for he inherited pride from both his parents, and he had been educated in the prejudices of his grandfather. At first he flushed with indignation, and refused to believe he was so disgraced.
"I don't see that you are disgraced, my young friend," replied Mr. King. "The world might indeed so misjudge, because it is accustomed to look only on externals; but there is no need that the world should know anything about it. And as for your own estimate of yourself, you were Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman before you knew this singular story, and you are Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman still."
"I am not so much of a philosopher," rejoined the young man. "I shall not find it easy to endure the double stain of illegitimacy and alliance with the colored race."
Mr. King regarded him with a friendly smile, as he answered: "Perhaps this experience, which you find so disagreeable, may educate you to more wisdom than the schools have done. It may teach you the great lesson of looking beneath the surface into the reality of things, my son. Legally you are illegitimate; but morally you are not so. Your mother believed herself married to your father, and through all the vicissitudes of her life she has proved herself a modest, pure, and noble woman. During twenty years of intimate acquaintance, I have never known her to indulge an unworthy thought, or do a dishonorable action, except that of substituting you for Mr. Fitzgerald's legal heir. And if I have at all succeeded in impressing upon your mind the frantic agony of her soul, desolate and shockingly abused as she was, I think you will agree with me in considering that an excusable offence; especially as she would have repaired the wrong a few hours later, if it had been in her power. With regard to an alliance with the colored race, I think it would be a more legitimate source of pride to have descended from that truly great man, Toussaint L'Ouverture, who was a full-blooded African, than from that unprincipled filibuster called William the Conqueror, or from any of his band of robbers, who transmitted titles of nobility to their posterity. That is the way I have learned to read history, my young friend, in the plain sunlight of truth, unchanged by looking at it through the deceptive colored glasses of conventional prejudice. Only yesterday you would have felt honored to claim my highly accomplished and noble-minded wife as a near relative. She is as highly accomplished and noble-minded a lady to-day as she was yesterday. The only difference is, that to-day you are aware her grandmother had a dark complexion. No human being can be really stained by anything apart from his own character; but if there were any blot resting upon you, it would come from your father. We should remember, however, that He who made man can alone justly estimate man's temptations. For myself, I believe that Mr. Fitzgerald's sins were largely attributable to the system of slavery under which he had the misfortune to be educated. He loved pleasure, he was rich, and he had irresponsible power over many of his fellow-beings, whom law and public opinion alike deprived of protection. Without judging him harshly, let his career be a warning to you to resist the first enticements to evil; and, as one means of doing so, let me advise you never to place yourself in that state of society which had such a malign influence upon him."
"Give me time to think," rejoined the young man. "This has come upon me so suddenly that I feel stunned."