"I think I had best take my wife from the reach of your violence, sir, now that I have convinced you that I did you no wrong in marrying her," said Durnford, with his arm round Irene, as if to shelter her in this moral tempest, this confusion and upheaval of all the baser elements in human nature.
"Take her away. Yes, remove her from my sight at once and for ever. Let me forget how I have loved her, that I may less deeply loathe her."
"Father," cried Irene piteously, holding out her arms to him, "do not forget that you have loved me, and that I have returned your love measure for measure. Is there no tie but that of blood? I have been brought up under your roof, and you have been kind to me, and I am sure I love you as much as daughters love their fathers. If you scorn me, do not scorn my love."
"You poor beggar's brat," muttered the Squire contemptuously, yet with a relenting look at the pale pathetic face, "you are the lightest sinner of them all, perhaps. But to have been cheated—to have taken a vagabond's spawn to my breast—"
"She is no vagabond's child, but of as gentle blood on the father's side as your own. She comes of a good old Hampshire family—as old as William the Norman. Her father was Philip Chumleigh, the son of a younger son, a gentleman born and bred."
"I thought as much when I saw him dead and stark upon Flamestead Common," said the Squire. "So-ho, mistress," to Bridget, who came in with a cowed air, and guilt written in every feature; "you were in the conspiracy to cheat your master with a supposititious child; but I'd have you to know that you were accomplice in a felony, for which you shall swing higher than Jack Sheppard, if there's justice in this land."
"O sir, is it hanging?" exclaimed the nurse, "and I as innocent as the unborn babe. Never would such a thought have come into my head, to put another into my darling's place; but she made me do it, and I was half distracted—loving them both so well—so full of sorrow for the little angel that was gone, and of tenderness for her that was left, and she—Mrs. Layburne—threatened me she would say 'twas by my neglect my precious treasure died, though God knows I neglected nothing, and watched day and night. But I was scarcely in my right senses; so I gave way, and held my tongue, and once done it was done for ever—there was no going back upon it. And when I saw your honour so fond of my pretty one, and she growing nearer and dearer to you every day, I thought it was well as it was. You had something to love."
"Something, but not of my own blood—something that had no right to my affection, an impostor, an alien, a sham, a cheat, a mockery. You had better have poisoned me, woman. It would have been a kinder thing to do."
"It was her doing," sobbed Bridget, pointing to Mrs. Layburne, who listened and looked on with a ghastly smile, the exultation of a fiend doomed to everlasting torment, and rejoicing in the agony of another. "'Twas all her doing, and I knew it was a sin, and have been troubled with the thought of it ever since; yes, I have never known real peace and comfort since I did her bidding. But she told me 'twas a good thing to do; your heart was so set on the child that it would all but kill you to lose her, and one child was equal to another in the sight of God, and the one that was left would grow up to be a blessing to you, did you but think she was your daughter; and so I yielded, and let her lie to you. But, O sir, as you are a Christian, do not punish that innocent lamb for our sin. Do not take your love from her."
"It is gone," cried the Squire. "She has become hateful to me."