"It is not nearly so bad as if it were the other way," reply I, laughing gayly; "I forty-eight, and you twenty, is it?"
"My child! my child!"—speaking with an accent of, to me, unaccountable suffering—"what possessed me to marry you? why did not I adopt you instead? It would have been a hundred times more seemly!"
"It is a little late to think of that now, is not it?" I say, with an uncomfortable smile; then I go on, with an uneasy laugh, "that was the very idea that occurred to us the first night you arrived; at least, it never struck us as possible that you would take any notice of me, but we all said what a good thing it would be for the family if you would adopt Barbara or the Brat."
"Did you?" (very quickly, in a tone of keen pain); "it struck you all in the same light then?"
"But that was before we had seen you," I answer, hastily, repenting my confession as soon as I see its effects. "When we had, we soon changed our tune."
"If I had adopted you," he pursues, still looking at me with the same painful and intent wistfulness, "if I had been your father, you would have been fond of me, would not you? Not afraid of me—not afraid to tell me any thing that most nearly concerned you—you would perhaps"—(with a difficult smile)—"you would perhaps have made me your confidant, would you, Nancy?"
I look up at him in utter bewilderment.
"What are you talking about? Why do I want a confidant? What have I to confide? What have I to tell any one?"
Our eyes are resting on each other, and, as I speak, I feel his go with clean and piercing search right through mine into my soul. In a moment I think of Musgrave, and the untold black tale now forever in my thought attached to him, and, as I so think, the hot flush of agonized shame that the recollection of him never fails to call to my face, invades cheeks, brow, and throat. To hide it, I drop my head on Roger's breast. Shall I tell him now, this instant? Is it possible that he has already some faint and shadowy suspicion of the truth—some vague conjecture concerning it, as something in his manner seems to say? But no! it is absolutely impossible! Who, with the best will in the world, could have told him? Is not the tale safely buried in the deep grave of Musgrave's and my two hearts?
I raise my head, and twice essay to speak. Twice I stop, choked. How can I put into words the insult I have received? How can I reveal to him the slack levity, the careless looseness, with which I have kept the honor confided to me?