"I will tell you: Guilty only of doing
violence to his own inclinations, from a mistaken sense of duty to his
father; that is all. I never felt more kindly--more affectionately to
Claude Bainrothe than at this moment. If I can serve him in any way, but
one, he may always command me. Let him go for the present to Copenhagen,
I implore you; it will be best for him--for all of us. He will know his
own mind better then, than he can now. When he returns, I would like to
see him happy. I doubt if he will be so, if he remains here," I
faltered; "I should dislike, very much, to see him make shipwreck of his
happiness." I hesitated, choked again. "I acknowledge--"
"You have cut him off, Miriam, that is plain, for the present, at
least," he interrupted. "Yet you speak in enigmas; but, if he be the man
I think he is, he will make all clear to you at last, for I am sure he
is incapable of any act radically wrong, and is the soul of chivalrous
honor; always ready to repair a folly, and avoid it in future. The very
best fellow living."
I had never seen Mr. Bainrothe so moved before as he now certainly was.
The glitter of a tear was in his mottled eye, and it stirred me
strangely. It was as if a snake should weep, and what in Nature could be
more affecting than such a spectacle? Or, rather, what _out_ of Nature?
There must have been, despite this tender showing, an outbreak of some
sort between father and son from the time of this call and the next
visit of Mr.
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