“You are not a Grahame!” cried Gomer, in a startling voice. “You do not take his infamous conduct as your standard of action—do you?”
Wilton shrank back, and felt the colour spring into his cheeks, as he beheld the glittering eyes of the little man fixed upon his features, as if to read, by their expression, what was passing in his heart.
With an effort he assumed a cold demeanour, and said—
“Tell me, what is the exact position of the family at the present moment?”
“I have done so,” said Gomer, with a manner as cold as his own. “I will repeat it. Grahame has fled, it is not known whither, although a hot search has been made for him. The sheriff is in possession of his house in London, at my suit. His eldest daughter fled from his house and became a mother before she knew she was a wife; his second daughter has eloped with the Duke of St. Allborne, and is now his kept mistress. The proud mother—the destroyer of her husband, and, so far as she could be, the cause of her children’s ruin—-is confined to her bed with a wasting illness and a crushed brain; she is a hopeless idiot. The son is in prison, arrested at the suit of a tailor, who has been discounting bills for him, which he has dishonoured. That is the condition of the proud Grahames. I ask you, are you satisfied? Are your feelings of revenge glutted by this wholesale wreck of the family?”
“There—there was, I think, another daughter,” said Wilton, in a low, hesitating tone. “You do not mention her.”
Nathan shrugged his shoulders, and said, tartly, “You mean the youngest, Evangeline, a simple, artless, innocent girl, with a foolishly affectionate nature She is pretty and engaging, and has been giving clandestine meetings to a young lawyer’s clerk. If he happens to be a scoundrel, it is not difficult to prophecy what will be her fate. Again I ask you, are you satisfied?”
Old Wilton rose up; he pressed his clenched fist upon his heart. In a hoarse voice, he exclaimed—
“I am shocked, I am horrified, Gomer. I contemplated this situation with a vile satisfaction. I am terrified at its realization. My vengeance! ugh! it is gorged. We must interpose—stay the further progress of their misery. We will save this child—this Evangeline, and rescue, too, the rest from destitution and perdition. Oh, pride! accursed pride! it has triumphed over the reason and the conscience of both Grahame and his wife. Had they listened to the gentle pleadings of nature, rather than to the dictates of an overweening, selfish, unfeeling, arrogant pride, home and family-might at this moment have been to them a source of the purest domestic felicity. What is it now?—I shudder to reflect upon it. The happiness of their children could never have been an element in their worldly calculations; on the contrary, they have trampled on the natural affections, and have considered their offspring rather as appendages to their state than as children part and parcel of themselves. Oh, it is terrible! it is terrible!”
“Ho! ho!” shouted Nathan Gomer; and springing up, he caught Wilton by the wrist, saying, with vehement earnestness, “‘Before all things, truth; and truth at all times!’ Why, pride does this for you, Wilton; pride makes you determine to trample on the natural affections. You—you would break your daughter’s heart rather than she should not give her hand to a most dishonourable Honourable. You would, at the inspiration of pride, stamp out her truthfulness, by compelling her to swear at the altar to love and honour a man she could never love and never honour. Pride urges you to crush all your only son’s hopes of earthly happiness, rather than he should mate with one who possesses a rare combination of human virtues, but is not garbed in fine linen, and cannot disport her dainty limbs in a handsome carriage. Go to! have you not one excuse for Grahame’s frailty?”