Family Pride

Wilford's voice trembled now, and for a moment there was silence in the room while he composed himself to go on with the story: "She would not live with me again if she could, she said, denouncing bitterly the Cameron pride and saying she was happier to be free. I remember I tried to excuse myself, remember saying that if there had been children or a child I should have paused before taking the decisive step, and there we parted, but not until she had told me that her traducer was the old discarded suitor who had sworn to have revenge, and who, since the divorce, had dared seek her again. A vague suspicion of this had crossed my mind once before, but the die was cast, and even if the man were false, what I saw myself in Rome still stood against her and so my conscience was quieted, while mother was more than glad to be rid of a daughter-in-law of whose family I knew nothing. Rumors I did hear of a cousin whose character was not the best, and of the father who for some crime had fled the country, dying in a foreign land, but as that was nothing to me now, I passed it by, feeling it was best to be relieved from one of so doubtful antecedents.

"In the spring of 185- we came back to New York, where no one had ever heard of the affair, so quietly and well had it been managed. I was a young man still, no one except my mother sharing in the secret. With her I often talked of Genevra, wishing sometimes that I could hear from her, a wish which was finally gratified. One day I received a note requesting an interview at a downtown hotel, the writer signing himself as Thomas Lambert, and adding that I need have no fears as he came to perform an act of justice, not of retribution. Three hours later I was locked in a room with Genevra's father, the same man whom I had seen in Rome. Detected in forgery years before, he had fled from England and had hidden himself in Rome, where he accidentally met his daughter, and so that stain was removed. He had heard of the divorce by a letter which Genevra managed to send him, and braving all difficulties and dangers he had come back to England and found his child, hearing from her the story of her wrongs, and as well as he was able setting himself to discover the author of the calumny. He was not long in tracing it to Le Roy, whom he found in a dying condition, and who with his last breath confessed the falsehood which was imposed upon me, he said, partly from motives of revenge and partly with a hope that free from me Genevra would at the last turn to him. As proof that Mr. Lambert told me the truth, he brought the dying man's confession, written in a cramped, trembling hand, which I recognized at once. The confession ended with the solemn assertion: 'For aught I know or believe, Genevra Lambert is as pure and true as any woman living.'