"Behold the proof!" exclaimed Gerald, with uncontrollable bitterness, as he drew from his bosom the portrait of a child which, from its striking resemblance, could be taken for no other than her to whom he now presented it.
"This is indeed mine," said Matilda, mournfully. "It was taken for me, as I have since understood, in the very year when I was laid an orphan and a stranger at the door of that good man, who, calling himself my uncle, has been to me through life a more than father. Thank God," she pursued, with great animation, her large, dark eyes upturned, and sparkling through the tears that forced themselves upwards, "thank God, he at least lives not to suffer through the acts of his adopted child. Where got you this, Gerald?" she proceeded, when, after a short struggle she had succeeded in overcoming her emotion.
Gerald, who in his narrative of events, had purposely omitted all mention of Desborough, now detailed the occurrence at the hut, and concluded what the reader already knows, by stating that he had observed and severed from the settler, as he slept heavily on the floor, the portrait in question, which, added to the previous declaration of Matilda as to the obscurity of her birth, connected with other circumstances on board his gun-boat, on his trip to Buffalo, had left an impression little short of certainty that he was indeed the father of the woman whom he so wildly loved.
For some minutes after this explanation there was a painful silence, which neither seemed anxious to interrupt. At length Gerald asked:
"But what had a circumstance, so capable of explanation, to do with the breaking off of your engagement, Matilda? or did he, more proud—perhaps I should say less debased—than myself, shrink from uniting his fate with the daughter of a murderer?"
"True," said Matilda, musingly; "you have said, I think, that he slew your father. This thirst for revenge, then, would seem hereditary. That is the only, because it is the noblest, inheritance I would owe to such a being."
"But your affair with your lover, Matilda—how terminated that?" demanded Gerald, with increasing paleness and in a faltering tone.
"In his falsehood and my disgrace. Early the next morning I sent to him, and bade him seek me in the temple at the usual hour. He came, but it was only to blast my hopes—to disappoint the passion of the woman who doated upon him. He accused me of vile intercourse with a slave, and almost maddened me with ignoble reproaches. It was in vain that I swore to him most solemnly, the man he had seen was my father—a being whom motives of prudence compelled me to receive in private, even though my heart abhorred and loathed the relationship between us. He treated my explanation with deriding contempt, bidding me either produce that father within twenty-four hours, or find some easier fool to persuade, that one wearing the hue and features of the black, could by human possibility be the parent of a white woman. Again I explained the seeming incongruity, by urging that the hasty and imperfect view he had taken was of a mask, imitating the features of a negro, which my father had brought with him as a disguise, and which he had hastily resumed on hearing the noise of the key in the door. I even admitted as an excuse for seeing him thus clandestinely, the lowly origin of my father and the base occupation he followed of a treacherous spy, who, residing in the Canadas, came, for the mere consideration of gold, to sell political information to the enemies of the country that gave him asylum and protection. I added that his visit to me was to extort money, under a threat of publishing our consanguinity, and that dread of his (my lover's) partiality being decreased by the disclosure, had induced me to throw my arms, in the earnestness of entreaty, upon his neck, and implore his secresy; promising to reward him generously for his silence. I moreover urged him, if he still doubted, to make inquiry of Major Montgomerie, and ascertain from him whether I was not indeed the niece of his adoption, and not of his blood. Finally, I humbled myself in the dust, and, like a fawning reptile, clasped his knees in my arms, entreating mercy and justice. But no," and the voice of Matilda grew deeper, and her form became more erect; "neither mercy nor justice dwelt in that hard heart, and he spurned me rudely from him. Nothing short of the production of him he persisted in calling my vile paramour, would satisfy him; but my ignoble parent had received from me the reward of his secresy, and he had departed once more to the Canadas. And thus," pursued Matilda, her voice trembling with emotion, "was I made the victim of the most diabolical suspicion that ever haunted the breast of man."
Gerald was greatly affected. His passion for Matilda seemed to increase in proportion with his sympathy for her wrongs, and he clasped her energetically to his heart.
"Finding him resolute in attaching to me the debasing imputation," pursued the American, "it suddenly flashed upon my mind that this was but a pretext to free himself from his engagement, and that he was glad to accomplish his object through the first means that offered. Oh, Gerald, I cannot paint the extraordinary change that came over my feelings at this thought! much less give you an idea of the rapidity with which that change was effected. One moment before, and, although degraded and unjustly accused, I had loved him with all the ardor of which a woman's heart is capable: now I hated, loathed, detested him; and had he sunk at my feet, I would have spurned him from me with indignation and scorn. I could not but be conscious that the very act of having yielded myself up to him, had armed my lover with the power to accuse me of infidelity, and the more I lingered on the want of generosity such a suspicion implied, the more rooted became my dislike, the more profound my contempt for him, who could thus repay so great a proof of confidingness and affection.