“Certainly you did.”
“Well, I have found the lost remembrance. My misfortune—I ought to call it the punishment for my sins, is recalled to me now. The worst curse that can fall on a father is the curse that has come to me. I have a wicked daughter. My own child, sir! my own child!”
Had he been awake, while Miss Jillgall and I had been talking outside his door? Had he heard her ask me if Mr. Gracedieu had said nothing of Helena’s infamous conduct to her sister, while he was speaking of Eunice? The way to the lost remembrance had perhaps been found there. In any case, after that bitter allusion to his “wicked daughter” some result must follow. Helena Gracedieu and a day of reckoning might be nearer to each other already than I had ventured to hope.
I waited anxiously for what he might say to me next.
CHAPTER XXXVI. THE WANDERING MIND.
For the moment, the Minister disappointed me.
Without speaking, without even looking up, he took out his pocketbook, and began to write in it. Constantly interrupted either by a trembling in the hand that held the pencil, or by a difficulty (as I imagined) in expressing thoughts imperfectly realized—his patience gave way; he dashed the book on the floor.
“My mind is gone!” he burst out. “Oh, Father in Heaven, let death deliver me from a body without a mind!”
Who could hear him, and be guilty of the cruelty of preaching self-control? I picked up the pocketbook, and offered to help him.