Was the only difference to be that Estelle should have added sight to her faith, and that I, whereas I had been blind, should see? I wished to tell as well as know.
My heart burned within me. In spite of Rob’s weakness I should have blazed forth my opinion of his selfishness, if Dave had not laid a restraining hand upon me. He drew me a little aside.
“It’s no use now, Bathsheba, don’t you see?” he said. “I shouldn’t have promised to keep silent about it, if Uncle Horace had not been just what he is and Rob in such terror of him. It’s constitutional with Rob, you know. Uncle Horace’s wife was afraid of him in the year before she died. No one can help pitying the poor boy.”
There was a noise behind the boards that startled me.
“You are afraid of your shadow! Those loose boards are light and the wind rattles them,” said Dave carelessly. “As I was saying I had to do just what I did—pay the money and get the check back on which Rob had forged his father’s name, and let the college authorities think that I had lost the money in betting. I couldn’t say, could I, that I had only followed Rob to Newmarket when he got off a sick-bed and made his way there somehow, because a picture of one of the race-horses which he saw by accident had made him sure that it was his old Lucifer;—the boy’s love for animals is almost morbid. Yes, perhaps I ought to have said so, Bathsheba; there were others to be thought of besides Rob or myself. But I gave him my promise hastily. I didn’t foresee the expulsion from college and all the consequences. When Rob found what a serious matter it was, he became wild with terror lest his father should find out.”
“We that are strong should bear the burdens of the weak, but we shouldn’t help them to be selfish,” I said sententiously.
“But Rob is so very weak! He’s different from other people. If his father had only realized that and made allowances for it.”
“But, now,” I said, “surely there’s no need of keeping on with the stupid deceit.” For I was too angry to give any fine names to the foolish business.
“But, now, do you know, I’ve come to rather like the martyrdom?” said Dave, with actually a twinkle in his eye. “I’ve learned in it more than I could have learned in college! ‘There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,’ you know!”
“God’s providence is mine inheritance,” flashed into my mind, but I would not say it lest I should encourage the boy in folly.