A Country Gentleman and His Family · Chapter 39 (2/2)

“You mean⁠—the other? well, that is possible. There is a prejudice, and a just prejudice. So you think on the whole that to do a young lady⁠—for I suppose the second is in your own class⁠—a real, an unspeakable injury would be better than to shock her prejudices? If that is how you of the new generation confuse what’s right and wrong⁠—”

Dick made no reply. He was not capable of self-defence, or even of understanding the indignation he had called forth. He continued as if only half conscious. “It need never be known. There is not a creature who knows of it. She sent me her marriage lines. She has nothing to prove that there ever was anything⁠—and she would not want to prove anything. She is as if she were dead.”

“Come, sir,” said the lawyer, “rouse yourself, Dick; she is not dead, and for every honourable man that must be enough. Don’t bewilder yourself with sophistries. Why should you want to marry⁠—again? You have had enough of it, I should think; or else divorce her, since you can. You may be able to do that secretly as well as the marriage. Why not?”

Dick said nothing, but shook his head. He was so completely cast down that he had not a word to say for himself. How he could have supposed that a dispassionate man could have taken his side and seen with his eyes in such a matter, it is hard to say. He had thought of it so much that all the lines had got blurred to him, and right and wrong had come to seem relative terms. “What harm would it do?” he said to himself, scarcely aware he was speaking aloud. “No one would be wronged, and they would never know. How could they know? it would be impossible. Whereas, on the other side, there must be a great scandal and raking up of everything, and betrayal⁠—to everyone.” He shuddered as he spoke.

“Whereas, on the other side,” said the old lawyer, “there would be a betrayal⁠—very much more serious. Suppose you were to die, and that then it were to be found out (in the long run everything is found out) that your wife was not your wife, and her children⁠—Come, Dick, you never can have contemplated a blackguard act like that to an unsuspecting girl!”

“Sir!” cried Dick, starting to his feet. But he could not maintain that resentful attitude. He sank down in the chair again, and said with a groan, “What am I to do?”

“There is only one thing for you to do: but it is very clear. Either explain the real circumstances to the young lady or her friends⁠—or without any explanation give up seeing her. In any case it is evident that the connection must be cut at once. Of course if she knows the true state of the case, and that you are a married man, she will do that. And if you shrink from explanations, you must do it without an hour’s delay.”

Dick made no reply. He sat for a time with his head in his hands: and then rose up with a dazed look, as if he scarcely knew what he was about. “Goodbye,” he said, “and thank you. I’ll⁠—tell Tom⁠—what you said.”

“Do,” said the old lawyer, getting up. He took Dick’s hand and wrung it in his own with a pressure that, though the thin old fingers had but little force, was painful in its energy. “You don’t ask my silence, but I’ll promise it you⁠—except in one contingency,” and here he wrung Dick’s hand again. “Should I hear of any marriage⁠—after what you have said, I shall certainly think it my duty to interfere.”

When Dick came out the day seemed to have grown dark to him; the sky was all covered with threads of black; he could scarcely see his way.