Bartlett, in dull dejection.—"No, I won't look at it. If it were a radiant message from heaven, I don't see how it could help me now."
Mrs. Wyatt.—"I'm afraid you've made a terrible mistake, James."
General Wyatt.—"Margaret! Don't say that!"
Mrs. Wyatt.—"Yes, it would have been better to show us this paper at once,—better than to keep us all these days in this terrible suffering."
General Wyatt.—"I was afraid of greater suffering for you both. I chose sorrow for Constance rather than the ignominy of knowing that she had set her heart on so base a scoundrel. When he crawled in the dust there before me, and whined for pity, I revolted from telling you or her how vile he was; the thought of it seemed to dishonour you; and I had hoped something, everything, from my girl's self-respect, her obedience, her faith in me. I never dreamed that it must come to this."
Mrs. Wyatt, sadly shaking her head.—"I know how well you meant; but oh, it was a fatal mistake!"
Constance, abandoning her refuge among the cushions, and coming forward to her father.—"No, mother, it was no mistake! I see now how wise and kind and merciful you have been, papa. You can never love me again, I've behaved so badly; but if you'll let me, I will try to live my gratitude for your mercy at a time when the whole truth would have killed me. Oh, papa! What shall I say, what shall I do to show how sorry and ashamed I am? Let me go down on my knees to thank you." Her father catches her to his heart, and fondly kisses her again and again. "I don't deserve it, papa! You ought to hate me, and drive me from you, and never let me see you again." She starts away from him as if to execute upon herself this terrible doom, when her eye falls upon the letter where she had thrown it on the floor. "To think how long I have been the fool, the slave of that—felon!" She stoops upon the paper with a hawk-like fierceness; she tears it into shreds, and strews the fragments about the room. "Oh, if I could only tear out of my heart all thoughts of him, all memory, all likeness!" In her wild scorn she has whirled unheedingly away toward Bartlett, whom, suddenly confronting, she apparently addresses in this aspiration; he opens wide his folded arms.
Bartlett.—"And what would you do, then, with this extraordinary resemblance?" The closing circle of his arms involves her and clasps her to his heart, from which beneficent shelter she presently exiles herself a pace or two, and stands with either hand pressed against his breast while her eyes dwell with rapture on his face.
Constance.—"Oh, you're not like him, and you never were!"
Bartlett, with light irony: "Ah?"