“‘Yes, it was often remarked,’ she returned; ‘but mamma always said it was not strange since Uncle Richard was her brother.’
“‘Not “Uncle Richard” any longer, my darling,’ I said, ‘but your own father.’
“‘My father! and you were his wife—you are my mother?’ she said, studying my face, and trembling in every nerve.
“‘It is a falsehood! Editha, leave the room instantly, and I will deal with these people myself. Go, I say; that woman is no fit companion for my daughter!’ Mr. Dalton shouted, and strode toward me, his hands clenched and his face blazing with fury.
“Whatever his intentions were, he never reached me, for the blood all at once gushed from his mouth, and he fell fainting to the floor.
“Of course everything was at once forgotten in the confusion that followed and the alarm occasioned by his condition. He had a very violent hemorrhage, and the doctor gave very little hope of his rallying; but his constitution was strong, and after a couple of weeks he began to gain strength and flesh, and the physicians then said, with the exercise of great care he might live for a good while. Meantime, Editha and I clung to each other with all the fondness and delight it is possible for a long-parted mother and child to experience. There was no doubt in our own minds that we belonged to each other, although Mr. Dalton was still very sullen and morose on the subject, and would confess nothing. But one day he was attacked with another bleeding turn, so severe that we all knew he could not live long, and he seemed conscious himself that he could not rally from it. Then he seemed willing to talk upon the subject so fraught with interest to us all. Editha sought him one day, and begged him to tell her all the truth. Then he confessed that it was all as I had supposed, and that the moment he saw me at Newport he knew me from a picture that he had once seen in Mr. Forrester’s possession. He said that when my husband returned from Europe with his little child he took her directly to his sister, who had no children, and begged her to adopt it as her own. He told all the story of his marriage and the sad events which followed it, and said he never wished his child to know that any sorrow was connected with her early life; he wished her to grow up happy and free from all care, and he would gladly forego the comfort of calling her his own, that no shadow need ever come upon her. In return for the consent of Mr. and Mrs. Dalton to adopt her, he settled upon them fifty thousand dollars, and promised them that Editha should have all his fortune if she outlived him.
“His reason told him that Richard Forrester would gladly have absolved him from all promise of secrecy regarding her birth, rather than that her life should be ruined, as it was likely to be upon discovering that you were his son; but his enmity toward you made him prefer to sacrifice her happiness rather than forego his revenge.”
“What a disposition for a person to cherish! It is beyond my comprehensions,” Earle said, gravely, and thinking sorrowfully of the dying man upstairs, whose whole life had been ruined by giving the rein to his evil passions.
“It would seem, too, as if there ought to have been some natural instinct in his heart that would at least have prevented him from doing you such despite, even if he bore you no love,” madam returned. “But, as he says,” she added, “he has been his own worst enemy—out of his own folly alone have sprung all his misfortunes and disappointments.”
“That is true, and is it not often proved that those who seek to wrong others only injure themselves the most in the end?” Earle asked.