Carice's blue eyes looked a sorrowful astonishment.
"I did not mean to do him any harm," pursued the Major, answering their mute eloquence; "I only wanted to teach him to drink like a man and a Bergan. I loved the boy, Carice, like my own son, and would have kept him with me, if I could. But he forsook me for the law, the ungrateful dog!"
"Perhaps he had no choice," suggested Carice.
"No choice! Didn't he have the choice of Bergan Hall, and all that belongs to it? That was what was running in Maumer Rue's head, just now. But he preferred independence—and a tin sign in his window! He is a degenerate scion of the race, like your—" The Major suddenly recollected himself, and broke off with a dry cough.
Carice was looking down thoughtfully. An unexpected clue to Bergan's character, motives, and aims, had been put into her hands; and she was slowly trying to follow it out.
"Thank you, uncle, for telling me this," said she, at length. "I am afraid we have been doing Bergan an injustice."
"You certainly have, if you have thought him a drunkard," replied the Major. "But, nevertheless, he's no true Bergan, Carice; don't have anything to do with him."
"No more than is just and right," said Carice, quietly. "And now I must go; mamma will be getting anxious. Come a little way with me, uncle, as you used to do."
The Major walked by her side down to the creek, and watched her anxiously across the dilapidated bridge.
"Don't come that way again," he called to her, as she reached the other end. "It's unsafe."