The moment the words had passed my lips, I came to my senses again; I remembered what fatal words they might prove to be, if they reached the Minister’s ears.
Heard only by his daughter, my reply seemed to cool the heat of her anger in an instant.
“So you knew my mother?” she said. “My father never told us that, when he spoke of your being such a very old friend of his. Strange, to say the least of it.”
I was wise enough—now when wisdom had come too late—not to attempt to explain myself, and not to give her an opportunity of saying more. “We are neither of us in a state of mind,” I answered, “to allow this interview to continue. I must try to recover my composure; and I leave you to do the same.”
In the solitude of my room, I was able to look my position fairly in the face.
Mr. Gracedieu’s wife had come to me, in the long-past time, without her husband’s knowledge. Tempted to a cruel resolve by the maternal triumph of having an infant of her own, she had resolved to rid herself of the poor little rival in her husband’s fatherly affection, by consigning the adopted child to the keeping of a charitable asylum. She had dared to ask me to help her. I had kept the secret of her shameful visit—I can honestly say, for the Minister’s sake. And now, long after time had doomed those events to oblivion, they were revived—and revived by me. Thanks to my folly, Mr. Gracedieu’s daughter knew what I had concealed from Mr. Gracedieu himself.
What course did respect for my friend, and respect for myself, counsel me to take?
I could only see before me a choice of two evils. To wait for events—with the too certain prospect of a vindictive betrayal of my indiscretion by Helena Gracedieu. Or to take the initiative into my own hands, and risk consequences which I might regret to the end of my life, by making my confession to the Minister.
Before I had decided, somebody knocked at the door. It was the maid-servant again. Was it possible she had been sent by Helena?
“Another message?”