The actual avowal made, and the fact established that his daughter was able to bear it, and to still keep the story between themselves, seemed to quiet Judge Erskine. His intense and almost uncontrollable excitement subsided; the wild look in his eyes calmed, and, drawing a chair beside his daughter, he began in a low steady voice to tell her the strange story:
"Acts that involve a lifetime of trouble can be told in a few words, Ruth. When your mother died I was almost insane with grief; I can't tell you about that time; I was young and I was gay, and full of plans, and aims, and intentions, in all of which she had been involved. Then came the sudden blank, and it almost unsettled my reason. There was a young woman boarding at the same house where I went, who was kind to me, who befriended me in various ways, and tried to help me to endure my sorrow. She grew to be almost necessary to my endurance of myself. After a little I married her. I did not take this step till I found that my friendship with her, or, rather hers with me, was compromising her in the eyes of others. Let me hurry over it, Ruth. We lived together but a few weeks; then I was obliged to go abroad. Away from old scenes and associations, and plunged into business cares, I gradually recovered my usual tone of mind. But it was not till I came home again that I discovered what a fatal blunder I had made. That young woman had not a single idea in common with my plans and aims in life; she was ignorant, uncultured, and, it seemed to me, unendurable. How I ever allowed myself to be such a fool I do not know. But up to this time, I had at least, not been a villain. I didn't desert her, Ruth; I made a deliberate compromise with her; she was to take her child and go away, hundreds of miles away, where I would not be likely ever to come in contact with her again, and I was to take your mother's child and go where I pleased. Of course I was to support her, and I have done so ever since; that was eighteen years ago; she is still living, and the daughter is living. I have always been careful to keep them supplied with money; I have tried to have done for the girl what money could do; but I have never seen their faces since that time. Now, Ruth, you know the miserable story. There are a hundred details that I could give you, that perhaps would lead you to have more pity for your father, if it did not lead you to despise him more for his weakness. It is hard to be despised by one's child. I tell you truly, Ruth, that the bitterest of this bitterness is the thought of you."
The proud man's lip quivered and his voice trembled, just here.
Poor Ruth Erskine! "I am willing to do anything," she had said to Marion, not two hours before; and here was a thing, the possibility of which she had never dreamed, staring her in the face, waiting to be done, and she felt that she could not do it. Oh, why was it necessary? "Why not let everything be as it has been?" said that wily villain Satan, whispering in her ears. "They were false vows; they are better broken than kept. He does not love her, though he said he did. And how can we ever endure it, the shame, the disgrace, the horrid explanations, our name, the Erskine name, on everybody's lips, common loafers sneering at us? And then to have the family changed; myself to be only a back figure; a mother who is not, and never was my mother, taking my place; and the other one— Oh, it can not be possible that we must endure this! There must be some other way. They are doubtless contented, why could it not remain as it is?"
As if to answer her unspoken thoughts, Judge Erskine suddenly said:
"I have canvassed the entire subject in all its bearings, you may be sure of that. I am living a lie. I am saying my wife is dead, when a woman to whom before God I gave that name is living; I am saying that I have but one child, when there is another to whom I am as certainly father as I am to you. I am leaving them, nay, obliging them, to live a daily lie. I have assured myself to a certainty that one sin can never be atoned for by another sin; there is but one atonement; and the Source of all help says, 'If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins; and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' I know there is only one way of cleansing, daughter."
"Get thee behind me, Satan." The only perfect life gave that sentence once, not alone for Himself; thank God he has many a time since enabled his weak children of the flesh to repeat it in triumph. The grace came then and there to Ruth Erskine. She rose up from her chair, and going over to her father did what she had never remembered doing in her life before. She bent down and wound both arms around his neck and kissed him. Her voice was low and steady:
"Father, don't let this, or anything earthly, stand between you and Christ. You are not a sinner above all others. It is only the interposing hand of God that has kept me from taking sinful vows upon my lips. Let us do just what is right. Send for them to come home, and I will try to be a daughter and a sister; and I will stand by you, and help you in every possible way. There are harder trials than ours will be, after all."
It was his daughter who finally and utterly broke the proud, haughty heart. Judge Erskine bowed himself before her and sobbed like a child in the bitterness and the humiliation of his soul.
"God bless you," he said, at last, in broken utterance. "There is an Almighty Saviour; I need nothing more than your words to convince me of the truth of that. If love to him can lead your heart to such forgiveness as this, what must his forgiveness be? Ruth, you have saved my soul; I will give up the struggle; I have tried to fight it out; I have tried to say that I could not; for my own sake, and for my own name, it seemed impossible. Then when I got beyond that, and felt that for myself, if I could have rest in the love of Christ, and could feel that he forgave me, I cared for nothing else. Then I said, 'I can not do this, for my child's sake; I can never plunge her into this depth of sin and shame.' Then, my daughter, there came to me a message from God, and of all those that could come to a miserable man like me, it was this: 'He that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me.' Then I saw that I must be willing even to lose your love, to make you despise me; and that was the bitterest cup of all. But, thank God, he has spared me this. God bless you, my daughter."