“You need not fear for me, I shall keep my word to Alice. The Schuylers will not be disgraced by me. And now, father, one question to you. The Schuylers, you say, were all men of honor, and I put it to your honor to answer me truly. Four years ago last spring, when I came home from Andover and found Gertie Westbrooke gone, I was terribly disappointed. That child,—she was one then,—had a powerful hold on me, and by her purity of principle and plain way of speaking to me was doing me untold good, and I wanted to see her again and hear what she had to say. But she was gone, and so I wrote to her, and gave the letter to you to post just as I would have given you one for Bob. It may seem strange that I remember it so distinctly. But I do. You were going out with letters in your hand and I gave you that, but never heard from it afterward. After waiting awhile for an answer I wrote again from school with a like result, and then when I knew she was here I wrote again, and directed to your care. Do you know why neither of these letters ever reached her, for they did not? She told me so last night when I asked her why she did not reply.”
He was looking steadily at his father, whose eyes were cast down as he replied:
“My son, I have to beg your pardon there. It was not an honorable thing to do, though I did it for the best. I never sent the letter committed to my care, and I wrote to Miss ——, the preceptress, sending her a specimen of your writing, and asking her if any letter came to Gertie Westbrooke, directed in that hand, to withhold it from her and mail it back to me. She did so, and when your third and last arrived I kept it also, and have them now unopened and unread.”
“And truly that was a very honorable thing for one to do who talks to me of honor! May I ask why you did it?” Godfrey said, his young face flushing and his voice full of anger.
“I did it to prevent possible trouble. I knew how much you were interested in the girl, and I did not wish to have her harmed.”
“Father!” and Godfrey’s voice rang with surprise and scorn. “You knew me. I am your son, and you knew that sooner than dishonor any woman I would part with my life; much less then would I harm a hair of the head of one who has been to me the sweetest thing I ever knew since I first saw her years ago in England. You had nothing to fear for her. There was some other reason. Will you tell me what it was, honestly?—the Schuylers are men of honor, you know!”
To this appeal the colonel answered a little hotly:
“Yes, Godfrey, I will tell you the truth. I feared an entanglement which might interfere with the wish of my life. I knew how beautiful, and sweet, and pure Gertie was just as well as you. But she is not a fitting wife for you. She has neither money, name, nor friends.”
“How do you know that? Mary Rogers always said she was a lady born,” Godfrey exclaimed impetuously, and his father replied:
“When Mary died and the child came here to live, I took pains to inquire into her antecedents, and wrote to the firm where her annuity is invested. But they could tell me nothing; the business had been done by Mrs. Rogers as guardian of the child, and I came to regard the big house and the high-born mother as a myth. No, Gertie has no friends, no money, no name, and I would not see you throw yourself away as you might have done had the correspondence been permitted to go on. Believe me, Godfrey, I acted for the best. It was your mother’s dying wish that you should marry Alice, and for her sake, if for no other, you will not break your word.”