“You give me leave, then, in your name, to tell the whole story to some particular friends, my cousin William’s part in it alone excepted?”
“I do.”
Henry now exclaimed, “God bless you!” with greater fervour than when he spoke it before; and he now hoped the night was nearly gone, that the time might be so much the shorter before Rebecca should be reinstated in the esteem of her father, and of all those who had misjudged her.
“God bless you!” said Agnes, still more fervently, as she walked with unguided steps towards her home; for her eyes never wandered from the precious object which caused her unexpected return.
CHAPTER XXXI.
Henry rose early in the morning, and flew to the curate’s house, with more than even his usual thirst of justice, to clear injured innocence, to redeem from shame her whom he loved. With eager haste he told that he had found the mother, whose fall from virtue Rebecca, overcome by confusion and threats, had taken on herself.
Rebecca rejoiced, but her sisters shook their heads, and even the father seemed to doubt.
Confident in the truth of his story, Henry persisted so boldly in his affirmations, that if Mr. Rymer did not entirely believe what he said, he secretly hoped that the dean and other people might; therefore he began to imagine he could possibly cast from his family the present stigma, whether or no it belonged to any other.
No sooner was Henry gone than Mr. Rymer waited on the dean to report what he had heard; and he frankly attributed his daughter’s false confession to the compulsive methods he had adopted in charging her with the offence. Upon this statement, Henry’s love to her was also a solution of his seemingly inconsistent conduct on that singular occasion.
The dean immediately said, “I will put the matter beyond all doubt; for I will this moment send for the present reputed mother; and if she acknowledges the child, I will instantly commit her to prison for the attempt of putting it to death.”