"Ernestine,"he said gravely,"I am going to speak to you about your father!"She looked up at him in swift surprise.
"Is it necessary?"
"I think so,"he answered."You won't like what I'm going to tell you!You'll think you've been badly treated.So you have!Ipledged my word,in a weak hour,with the others.To-day I'm going to break it.I think it best.""Well?""You've been deceived!You were told always that your father had died in prison.He didn't.""What!
Her sharp cry rang out strangely into the little room.Already he could see signs of the coming storm,and the task which lay before him seemed more hateful than ever.
"Listen,"he said."I must tell you some things which you know in order to explain others which you do not know.Your father was a younger son born of extravagant parents,virtually penniless and without the least capacity for earning money.I don't blame him -who could?I couldn't earn money myself.If I hadn't got it Idaresay that I should go to the bad as he did."The girl's lips tightened,and she drew a little breath through her teeth.Davenant hesitated.
"You know all about that company affair.Of course they made your father the butt of the whole thing,although he was little more than a tool.He was sent to prison for seven years.You were only a child then and your mother was dead.Well,when the seven years were up,your relations and mine too,Ernestine,concocted what Ihave always considered an ill-begotten and a miserably selfish plot.
Your father,unfortunately,yielded to them,for your sake.You were told that he had died in prison.He did not.He lived through his seven years there,and when he came out did so in another name and went abroad on the morning of the day of his liberation.""Good God!"she cried."And now!""He is dead,"Davenant answered hastily,"but only just lately.
Wait a minute.You are going to be furiously angry.I know it,and I don't blame you.Only listen for a moment.The scheme was hatched up between my father and your two uncles.I have always hated it and always protested against it.Remember that and be fair to me.This is how they reasoned.Your father's health,they said,was ruined,and if he lives the seven years what is there left for him when he comes out?He was a man,as you know,of aristocratic and fastidious tastes.He would have the best of everything -society,clubs,sport.Now all these were barred against him.If he had reappeared he could not have shown his face in Pall Mall,or on the racecourses,and every moment of his life would be full of humiliations and bitterness.Virtually then,for such a man as he was,life in England was over.Then there was you.
You were a pretty child and the Earl had no children.If your father was dead the story would be forgotten,you would marry brilliantly and an ugly page in the family history would be blotted out.That was how they looked at it -it was how they put it to your father.""He consented?""Yes,he consented!He saw the wisdom of it for your sake,for the sake of the family,even for his own sake.The Earl settled an income upon him and he left England secretly on the morning of his release.We had the news of his death only a week or two ago."She stood up,her eyes blazing,her hands clenched together.
"I thank God,"she said "that I have found the courage to break away from those people and take a little of my life into my own hands.You can tell them this if you will,Cecil,-my uncle Lord Davenant,your mother,and whoever had a say in this miserable affair.Tell them from me that I know the truth and that they are a pack of cowardly,unnatural old women.Tell them that so long as I live It will never willingly speak to one of them again.
"I was afraid you'd take it like that,"he remarked dolefully.
"Take it like that!"she repeated in fierce scorn."How else could a woman hear such news?How else do you suppose she could feel to be told that she had been hoodwinked,and kept from her duty and a man's heart very likely broken,to save the respectability of a worn-out old family.Oh,how could they have dared to do it?How could they have dared to do it?""It was a beastly mistake,"he admitted.
A whirlwind of scorn seemed to sweep over her.She could keep still no longer.She walked up and down the little room.Her hands were clenched,her eyes flashing.
"To tell me that he was dead -to let him live out the rest of his poor life in exile and alone!Did they think that I didn't care?
Cecil,"she exclaimed,suddenly turning and facing him,"I always loved my father!You may think that I was too young to remember him -I wasn't,I loved him always.When I grew up and they told me of his disgrace I was bitterly sorry,for I loved his memory -but it made no difference.And all the time it was a weak,silly lie!They let him come out,poor father,without a friend to speak to him and they hustled him out of the country.And I,whose place was there with him,never knew!""You were only a child,Ernestine.It was twelve years ago.""Child!I may have been only a child,but I should have been old enough to know where my place was.Thank God I have done with these people and their disgusting shibboleth of respectability.""You are a little violent,"he remarked.
"Pshaw!"She flashed a look of scorn upon him."You don't understand!How should you,you are of their kidney -you're only half a man.Thank God that my mother was of the people!I'd have died to have gone smirking through life with a brick for a heart and milk and water in my veins!Of all the stupid pieces of brutality I ever heard of,this is the most callous and the most heartbreaking.""It was a great mistake,"he said,"but I believe they did it for the best."She sat down with a little gesture of despair.
