“Compassion on such an occasion was unplaced,” said the dean.
“Was I wrong, sir, to pity the child?”
“No.”
“Then how could I feel for that, and yet divest myself of all feeling for its mother?”
“Its mother!” exclaimed William, in anger: “she ought to have been immediately pursued, apprehended, and committed to prison.”
“It struck me, cousin William,” replied Henry, “that the father was more deserving of a prison: the poor woman had abandoned only one—the man, in all likelihood, had forsaken two pitiable creatures.”
William was pouring execrations “on the villain if such there could be,” when Rebecca was announced.
Her eyes were half closed with weeping; deep confusion overspread her face; and her tottering limbs could hardly support her to the awful chamber where the dean, her father, and William sat in judgment, whilst her beloved Henry stood arraigned as a culprit, by her false evidence.
Upon her entrance, her father first addressed her, and said in a stern, threatening, yet feeling tone, “Unhappy girl, answer me before all present—Have you, or have you not, owned yourself a mother?”
She replied, stealing a fearful look at Henry, “I have.”