It was no use fighting against it. This hideous, profane incredibility was the truth. Even without the letters to read over again he knew it was true.
"Remember, if he casts it out, it is your child." The long-dead lips still spoke. His mother had pronounced his doom herself.
"I am illegitimate," said John to himself. And he remembered Di and hid his face in his hands, while his mother simpered at him from the wall. The solid earth had failed beneath his feet.
Let us beware how we sin, inasmuch as by God's decree we do not pay. We could almost conceive a right to do as we will, if we could keep the penalty to ourselves, and pay to the uttermost farthing. But not from us is the inevitable payment required. The young, the innocent, the unborn, smart for us, are made bankrupt for us; from them is exacted the deficit which we have left behind. The sins of the fathers are visited on the children heavily—heavily.
CHAPTER VI.
"What name doth Joy most borrow
When life is fair?
'To-morrow.'"
George Eliot.
