“God knows I have striven to do my duty by her—but I know not what I should have done, if I had thought you would ever wish to change your relations with her, Duncan.”
“The world has not her equal! It is cruel, it is wrong, mother, in you to oppose.”
“She is a lovely woman—she has well availed herself of the advantages given her—but, my son, there are myriads like her.”
“No, not one! Tell me, you will never breathe a word of this to her?”
“Never!”
“Oh, thank you! thank you! Mother, you could not wish another daughter?”
“But for that I have told you, Duncan, I could not wish another.”
“Then I say you must not work this great injustice on her and me. Rosalie loves me, she has promised to be mine. You will break my heart.”
“You are deluded and strangely excited, my son, or you never would speak so to me,” said the mother, persisting in that firmness with which the physician resorts to a desperate remedy for a desperate disease. Then she spoke to him of all the relations in life he might yet be called upon to assume, of the misery which very possibly might follow, though now unforeseen, in after days—hours passed on, and the conference was not ended until with a crushed heart and trembling voice Duncan arose abruptly, while his mother yet spoke, and he said,
“If the conclusion to which you have urged me is right in God’s sight, He will give me, He will give Rosalie, too, strength to abide by it. But I can never speak to her of this, and I must find another home than yours and hers. You must speak for me, mother—and oh let me charge you, do it gently. Do not tell her all. Let her think what she will—believe, as she must, that I am a wretch past pardon, but do not blight her peace by telling all.”