The Maid of Maiden Lane

"If I were you, I would scorn to wet my sword in blood so base."

"Remember, Annie, what this darling girl suffered. For his treachery she nearly died. I speak not of my own wrong--it is as nothing to hers."

"However, she might have been more careful."

"Annie, she was in the happy hurry of love. Your calm soul knows not what a confusing thing that is--she made a mistake, and that sneaking villain turned her mistake into a crime. By a God's mercy, it is found out--but how? Annie! Annie, how much I owe you! What can I say? What can I do?"

"Be reasonable. Mary Damer really found it out. His guilty restless conscience forced him to tell her the story, though to be sure he put the wrong on people he did not name. But I knew so much of the mystery of your love sorrow, as to put the two stories together, and find them fit. Then I wrote to Cornelia."

"How long ago?"

"About two months."

"Why then did you not give me hope ere this?"

"I would not give you hope, till hope was certain. Two years is a long time in a girl's life. It was a possible thing for Cornelia to have forgotten--to have changed."

"Impossible! Quite impossible! She could not forget. She could not change. Why did you not tell me? I should have known her heart by mine own."

"I wished to be sure," repeated Annie, a little sadly.

"Forgive me, dear Annie. But this news throws me into an unspeakable condition. You see that I must leave for America at once."

"No. I do not see that, George."

"But if you consider--"

"I have been considering for two months. Let me decide for you now, for you are not able to do so wisely. Write at once to Cornelia, that is your duty as well as your pleasure. But before you go to her, there are things indispensable to be done. Will you ask Doctor Moran for his child, and not be able to show him that you can care for her as she deserves to be cared for? Lawyers will not be hurried, there will be consultations, and engrossings, and signings, and love--in your case-- will have to wait upon law."

"'Tis hard for love, and harder perhaps for anger to wait. For I am in a passion of wrath at Van Ariens. I long to be near him. Oh what suffering his envy and hatred have caused others!"

"And himself also. Be sure of that, or he had not tried to find some ease in a kind of confession. Doctor Roslyn will tell you that it is an eternal law, that wherever sin is, sorrow will answer it."