Inique, without comment, took up the word where the interruption occurred.
“My reasoning took this shape. My daughter is a puny thing—there is no probability of her surviving to even girlhood. What does it matter if the baby is betrothed to her brother? As for De Ladron, if he ever returns from the new world, how is he to recognize his boy, grown out of remembrance, if the child does not die—he seems pining away rapidly—before that time. Hernan Ladron I never saw again; but his infant grew strong and healthy in our change of climate, and this vexed me hourly. I had felt sure the weakly thing could not live, or the exchange would not have been made; and now, he was growing up a quiet, mild boy—pah! it made me sick to think he believed himself my son, as did all the world beside. The sense of this contrast pushed from my brain all other concern. I cursed the grasping folly which had tempted me to barter a gallant fellow, like my own boy, for an estate and this whey-faced child. However, he should go to war with me, and be cured of his girlishness. But when, at St. Quentin, he fled before the first charge of the French, cowering at my stirrup, I was frantic with rage and shame. I had no love for the boy; his very existence was a daily threat of exposure, and I beat him, as you all saw, with my sword hilt, to drive him a second time into the fight. What followed, too, you all knew. But, until this day, no mortal has learnt the yearning pity that mastered my passions and filled my breast with remorse. I believe my first resolution was to confess my infamy and restore the heir his wealth and name; but I waited until he should recover, and when I saw he was likely to remain an idiot, I changed my mind.”
“Don Augustino, you would have been less dishonored by confessing your dishonor,” cried our knight, here. “You proved yourself, in the sight of Heaven, a greater coward than your reputed son.”
“Sir,” replied the other, hotly, flushing red, “you forget I am your equal in point of rank, if not virtue, and wear a sword. You tax my forbearance heavily.”
“A horse in meadow neighs louder than a horse under saddle,” answered Padilh. “Overlook the reproach, Don Augustino, and pass on.”
“I set some value on your friendship, and will not consent to lose it for a hard word honestly spoken,” Inique said, not very contentedly.
“I altered my mind, but not altogether. I resolved not a fraction of his income should be used in the service of me or mine, and reduced the expenses of my household accordingly. Hilo, my real son, left to his own guidance at home, had become a ruinous spendthrift, and openly revolted at any curtailment of what he considered his rights. But against his wickedness I had, as a set off, the patience and affection of the supposititious son; the very qualities I had before despised now touched me most—his mildness of face and speech, and trustfulness in my protection—for the whole past seemed wiped out of his remembrance, and but a single word was capable of recalling any portion of it—the word the Constable of Castile spoke yesterday at table. Perhaps the cries and sounds of battle might recall my shame and his sorrow, but my care has hitherto proved successful in keeping such from his ears.”
“Yet there seems to me in all this, Don Augustino, no good reason for your becoming the boy’s jailor,” said Sir Pedro.
“Stay. If it was hard to resolve on publishing my infamy with my own mouth, was it easy to bear the thought that some day it must be realised in the growing likeness of my prisoner to his true father, Ladron? I watched this fast maturing resemblance with the anguish of one seeing his death warrant signed, understanding to the full how the crime which my voluntary confession might have softened in the eyes of the world, would grow in odium as time elapsed. I fancied it was only needful for you, or any one familiar with the father’s face, to catch a glimpse of the son’s to detect my secret; and I kept the sole evidence near my person, not because it was the safest, but the least harassing course it was possible to pursue.”
“The least harassing, Don Augustino,” the knight said, “would have been to acknowledge your criminality at first, and have made restitution openly as you did in private. Better do so now than never.”