"With all due respect for my brother Harry," returned her husband, coolly, "I don't consider his testimony, in this matter, to be worth much. Intemperance is, in his estimation, so very venial a sin,—not to say, so very Berganly a virtue,—that he would be sure to extenuate it, if he could."
"He would never say what was not true," affirmed Mrs. Bergan, decidedly.
"No, but he would look at the affair from his own point of view, and speak accordingly."
"But your nephew left him on account of that very affair," persisted Mrs. Bergan, "and has refused to have anything to do with him since, even with Bergan Hall held out to him as a bait."
"In which," rejoined Mr. Bergan, composedly, "he shows that he has more of the hereditary temper than is good for him, or any one connected with him. It is the same trait that has made Harry so bitter against us, all these years. And one feud in the family was enough—and too much."
Mrs. Bergan began to look annoyed. While she admitted the general truth of her husband's observations, she had an intuitive conviction of their present misapplication. Her womanly instincts were all in Bergan's favor. But that, she knew, was no ground of effective argument.
Her husband looked at her clouded face, for a moment, and then went to her side. "Confess now, Clarissa," said he, pleasantly, laying his hand on her shoulder, "that our nephew's claims upon our attention would never have presented themselves so strongly to your mind, were it not for his late brilliant hit in the court room, and the sudden admiration and popularity which it has won him."
A slight flush showed on Mrs. Bergan's cheek; nevertheless, she met her husband's eyes frankly. "I acknowledge that those things had their effect in making me ashamed of myself," she answered. "But, all the time, I have had an uneasy feeling that we were not doing our duty by your sister's son. Surely, we ought to have been the very last persons to have listened to, and acted upon, a rumor unfavorable to him; or, if it were certain that he had made a false step, we should have been ready with our influence and countenance, to help him to retrieve himself."
"You forget, my dear," said Mr. Bergan, gently, "that it was for Carice's sake. We were thinking only of her."
"And so we did evil that good might come," returned his wife, somewhat ruefully. "But evil follows the universal law, and brings forth after its kind."