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Page 45
"'You have a hard lot,' remarked I. 'Your life must be a sad one.'
"She flashed upon me one glance of her dark eye. 'I was born for
hardship,' said she, 'but--' and a sudden wild shudder seized her,
'but not for crime.'
"The word fell like a drop of blood wrung from her heart.
"'Good heavens!' cried I, 'and must you--'
"'No,' rang from her lips in a clarion-like peal; 'some things cut the
very bonds of nature. I am not called upon to cleave to what will
drag me into infamy.' Then calmly, as if speaking of the most ordinary
matter in the world, 'I shall never go back to that house we have
left behind us, sir.'
"'But,' cried I, glancing at her scanty garments, 'where will you go?
What will you do? You are young--'
"'And very strong,' she interrupted. 'Do not fear for me.' And her
smile was like a burst of sudden sunshine.
"I said no more that night.
"But when in the morning I stumbled upon her sitting in the kitchen
reading a book not only above her position but beyond her years, a
sudden impulse seized me and I asked her if she would like to be
educated. The instantaneous illumining of her whole face was
sufficient reply without her low emphatic words,
"'I would be content to study on my knees to know what some women do,
whom I have seen.'
"It is not necessary for me to relate with what pleasure I caught at
the idea that here was a chance to repay in some slight measure the
inestimable favor she had done me; nor by what arguments I finally
won her to accept an education at my hands as some sort of recompense
for the life she had saved. The advantage which it would give her in
her struggle with the world she seemed duly to appreciate, but that so
great a favor could be shown her without causing me much trouble and
an unwarrantable expense, she could not at once be brought to
comprehend, and till she could, she held out with that gentle but
inflexible will of hers. The battle, however, was won at last and I
left her in that little cottage, with the understanding that as soon
as the matter could be arranged, she was to enter a certain
boarding-school in Troy with the mistress of which I was acquainted.
Meanwhile she was to go out to service at Melville and earn enough
money to provide herself with clothes.
"I was a careless fellow in those days but I kept my promise to that
girl. I not only entered her into that school for a course of three
years, but acting through its mistress who had taken a great fancy to
her, supplied her with the necessities her position required. It was
so easy; merely the signing of a check from time to time, and it was
done. I say this because I really think if it had involved any
personal sacrifice on my part, even of an hour of my time, or the
labor of a thought, I should not have done it. For with my return to
the city my interest in my cousin revived, absorbing me to such an
extent that any matter disconnected with her soon lost all charm for
me.
"Two years passed; I was the slave of Evelyn Blake, but there was no
engagement between us. My father's determined opposition was enough
to prevent that. But there was an understanding which I fondly hoped
would one day open for me the way of happiness. But I did not know my
father. Sick as he was--he was at that time laboring under the
disease which in a couple of months later bore him to the tomb--he
kept an eye upon my movements and seemed to probe my inmost heart. At
last he came to a definite decision and spoke.
"His words opened a world of dismay before me. I was his only child,
as he remarked, and it had been and was the desire of his heart to
leave me as rich and independent a man as himself. But I seemed
disposed to commit one of those acts against which he had the most
determined prejudice; marriage between cousins being in his eyes an
unsanctified and dangerous proceeding, liable to consequences the
most unhappy. If I persisted, he must will his property elsewhere. The
Blake estate should never descend with the seal of his approbation to
a race of probable imbeciles.
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