Page:The Last Chronicle of Barset Vol 2.djvu/242

216 affected by the stain of my disgrace. You have a daughter, to whom all your solicitude is due. No one should go to your house as your second wife who cannot feel that she will serve your child. My daughter would feel that she was bringing an injury upon the babe. I cannot bid her do this,—and I will not. Nor do I believe that she would do so if I bade her." Then he turned his chair round, and sat with his face to the wall, wiping away the tears with a tattered handkerchief.

Mrs. Crawley led the major away to the further window, and there stood looking up into his face. It need hardly be said that they also were crying. Whose eyes could have been dry after such a scene,—upon hearing such words? "You had better go," said Mrs. Crawley. "I know him so well. You had better go."

"Mrs. Crawley," he said, whispering to her, "if I ever desert her, may all that I love desert me! But you will help me?"

"You would want no help, were it not for this trouble."

"But you will help me?"

Then she paused a moment. "I can do nothing," she said, "but what he bids me."

"You will trust me, at any rate?" said the major.

"I do trust you," she replied. Then he went without saying a word further to Mr. Crawley. As soon as he was gone, the wife went over to her husband, and put her arm gently round his neck as he was sitting. For a while the husband took no notice of his wife's caress, but sat motionless, with his face still turned to the wall. Then she spoke to him a word or two, telling him that their visitor was gone. "My child!" he said. "My poor child! my darling! She has found grace in this man's sight; but even of that has her father robbed her! The Lord has visited upon the children the sins of the father, and will do so to the third and fourth generation."