It was not that the dean, as a magistrate, distributed partial decrees of pretended justice—he was rigidly faithful to his trust: he would not inflict punishment on the innocent, nor let the guilty escape; but in all particulars of refined or coarse treatment he would alleviate or aggravate according to the rank of the offender. He could not feel that a secret was of equal importance to a poor as to a rich person; and while Agnes gave no intimation but that her delicacy rose from fears for herself, she did not so forcibly impress him with an opinion that it was a case which had weighty cause for a private conference as when she boldly said, “a part of his family, very near to him, was concerned in her tale.”
The final result of their conversation in an adjoining room was—a charge from the dean, in the words of Mr. Rymer, “to hush the affair up,” and his promise that the infant should be immediately taken from her, and that “she should have no more trouble with it.”
“I have no trouble with it,” replied Agnes: “my child is now all my comfort, and I cannot part from it.”
“Why, you inconsistent woman, did you not attempt to murder it?”
“That was before I had nursed it.”
“’Tis necessary you should give it up: it must be sent some miles away; and then the whole circumstance will be soon forgotten.”
“I shall never forget it.”
“No matter; you must give up the child. Do not some of our first women of quality part with their children?”
“Women of quality have other things to love—I have nothing else.”
“And would you occasion my son and his new-made bride the shame and the uneasiness—”