‘Yes, he went out. Why shouldn’t he? He’s so young, and his first night in London. It isn’t at all exciting to us; but think what it would be to a boy who had never been here before.’
‘You are accusing him before I attack him, Susie. The first night! I didn’t even think of warning him not to go out. I thought him all safe the first night. Oh me, oh me, has it begun already?—what I’ve trembled for all his life!’
‘No, no,’ cried Susie with her anxious voice. ‘I’m sure it’s not that. He went out, to be sure. Fancy, at his age, to be in London, and without anyone to talk to, and not to go out. The parents of the child were very good to him, and had his head plastered up. It was very well done too,’ said Susie, with professional approbation. ‘For my part, I was quite happy to hear that he had saved the child.’
Mrs. Sandford shook her head. She turned back to her books again; then pushed them aside, and put up her hands to her head.
‘Oh! Susie,’ she cried, ‘I knew how it would be. He is your father all over. All his ways are his ways. I thought he was safe down in the quiet country with the old people. If they had lived, I should never have wished him to know anything of you or me. What can we do for him? We can’t even have him in the house with us. Oh, how foolish I was to bring him to London! I might have paid some one down there to take care of him—to keep him out of evil.’
‘Mother, you know that could not be. Don’t you remember how many talks we used to have about it? You can’t keep a boy of his age so. He is almost a man; and, mother, he looks like a man sometimes: when he rose up in indignation against me, because I—because I——’
‘You thought so too? Don’t conceal it from me, Susie. You saw him come in—with all this story about an accident—the very first night. I knew it was in him, his father’s son: and my poor father and mother with all their innocent tales about him; how good he was; never a suspicion, not a weakness of any kind. Oh, why did they die? Why did I bring him away from the country? And why, why is it permitted that this poison should come into a young boy’s veins, from a father he scarcely knew!’
‘Oh, mother, wait till you see; don’t condemn him unheard.’
‘Condemn him! Would I condemn him? My heart bleeds for him, Susie; but I see all the tortures that are in store for us: and for him it would have been better if he never had been born. For what can we do for him, you and I?’
‘Oh, mother, it is not so bad as that; it may never be so bad!’ Susie said, with tears.