Earle Wayne's nobility

by Mrs. Georgie Sheldon

“I have told you how I disliked you from the first, simply because Richard Forrester was interested in you, and I was jealous of any one who was likely to win anything from him. You know how I scorned you because Editha took a girlish fancy to you, and you dared to treat her as if you considered yourself her equal. I was so angry that day in court that I could have blotted you out of existence had I possessed the power, and throttled her when she stood up so fearlessly in that crowded room and asserted your innocence. I was afraid she would learn to love you, and persist in marrying you. I knew that Richard Forrester was rich, and that she would have all his money; but I meant she should get more, by making a wealthy marriage. The more she had, the more I thought I should have, and stand the higher in the world for it.”

Again he paused to rest, and Earle would have been glad if he would cease entirely. He knew all this, and he could not see the good of its all being rehearsed, neither could he understand toward what it was drifting; but he was soon to know, and a great surprise awaited him.

“When Richard Forrester died,” he began again, “and left you that ten thousand dollars, I vowed you should not have it, for I felt sure it would give you a start in life, and you would want to marry Editha. I was bound she should wed a rich man, and I would not be thwarted. Then I made the discovery of who you were; and if your sentence had been for life, I would not have lifted my finger to have had it mitigated in the slightest degree. I seemed to gloat over the fact that Marion’s son, the son of the woman whose high spirit had prevented me from reaching the goal I sought, was thus disgraced, and, not knowing that she was dead, I thought I could imagine some of her sufferings on account of it.

“I do not wonder that you shudder,” he said, seeing a quiver of pain run over Earle’s body at this heartless speech; “and I can see now just how such fiendish malice appears to others. If I had known, however, that my marriage with Marion had been legal, you may be sure I should have adopted a very different course. If, when from motives of curiosity I opened that package belonging to you, I had discovered those papers in the cardboard pocket, my ambition and selfishness would have prompted me to court the favor of the heir of Wycliffe. But I did not know, and when you told me, and refused to let me share your honors, my ire increased tenfold, and I vowed I would make you suffer for it in some way.”

Earle’s face was very grave and pale as he listened, and it seemed as if he was almost living over again the troubles he had been through, to be reminded of them in this way.

“There was only one way that I could do this,” Mr. Dalton said, with a troubled glance at the white, set face by his side, “and that was through Editha. You loved her, and she loved you, and I gloated over the fact that through her I could make you miserable, though you stood on the very pinnacle of where I had longed to climb, and even though I sacrificed her in so doing.”

Earle’s lips twitched nervously at this, and, had not the man before him been helpless and dying, his indignation must have burst forth at this startling and inhuman statement.

Mr. Dalton noticed his emotion, and his lips curled in a bitter smile.

“One is not often allowed the privilege of reading such a page of heart-history as I am turning for you to-day; one does not often meet a father who could cherish such bitterness and antagonism toward his only son, and so utterly devoid of natural affection also for the child whom he has reared from infancy; but I will make no half-confession—I want you to know just how black my record has been, and then I will make what restitution there is in my power.

“With all my other sins, I had a secret that I had kept for more than twenty years, and expected it would die with me. I did not believe there was a soul living who knew aught of it, or who could ever discover it.