Part 47 (2/2)
”What is it, daddy, dear?”
”Betty,”--he spoke sternly, as she had never heard him before,--”have you been concealing something from your father and mother--and from the world--for the last three years and a half?”
Her head drooped, the red left her cheeks, and she turned white to the lips. She drew away from her father and clasped her hands in her lap, tightly. She was praying for strength to tell the truth. Ah, could she do it? Could she do it! And perhaps cause Richard's condemnation?
Had they found him?--that father should ask such a question now, after so long a time?
”Why do you ask me such a question, father?”
”Tell me the truth, child.”
”Father! I--I--can't,” and her voice died away to a whisper.
”You can and you must, Betty.”
She rose and stood trembling before him with clinched hands. ”What has happened? Tell me. It is not fair to ask me such a question unless you tell me why.” Then she dropped upon her knees and hid her face against his sleeve. ”If you don't tell me what has happened, I will never speak again. I will be dumb, even if they kill me.”
He put his arm tenderly about the trembling little form, and the act brought the tears and he thought her softened. He knew, as Mary had often said, that ”Betty could not be driven, but might be led.”
”Tell father all about it, little daughter.” But she did not open her lips. He waited patiently, then asked again, kindly and persistently, ”What have you been hiding, Betty?” but she only sobbed on. ”Betty, if you do not tell me now and here, you will be taken into court and made to tell all you know before all the world! You will be proven to have been untrue to the man you were to marry and who loved you, and to have been s.h.i.+elding his murderer.”
”Then it is Richard. They have found him?” She shrank away from her father and her sobs ceased. ”It has come at last. Father--if--if--I had--been married to Richard--then would they make me go in court and testify against him?”
”No. A wife is not compelled to give testimony against her husband, nor may she testify for him, either.”
Betty rose and straightened herself defiantly; with flaming cheeks and flas.h.i.+ng eyes she looked down upon him.
”Then I will tell one great lie--father--and do it even if--if it should drag me down to--h.e.l.l. I will say I am married to Richard--and will swear to it.” Bertrand was silent, aghast. ”Father! Where is Richard?”
”He is there in Leauvite, in jail. You must do what is right in the eye of G.o.d, my child, and tell the truth.”
”If I tell the truth,--they will do what is right in their own eyes.
They don't know what is right in the eye of G.o.d. If they drag me into court--there before all the world I will lie to them until I drop dead. Has--has--the Elder seen him?”
”Not yet. He refused to see him until the trial.”
”He is a cruel, vindictive old man. Does he think it will bring Peter back to life again to hang Richard? Does he think it will save his wife from sorrow, or--or bring any one nearer heaven to do it?”
”If Richard has done the thing he is accused of doing, he deserves the extremest rigor of the law.”
”Father! Don't let the Elder make you hard like himself. What is he accused of doing?”
”He is making claim that he is Peter Junior, and that he has come back to Leauvite to give himself up for the murder of his cousin, Richard Kildene. He thinks, no doubt, that you will say that you know Richard is living, and that he has not killed him, and in that way he thinks to escape punishment, by proving that Peter also is living, and is himself. Do you see how it is? He has chosen to live here an impostor rather than to live in hiding as an outcast, and is trading on his likeness to his cousin to bear him out. I had hoped that it was all a detective's lie, got up for the purpose of getting hold of the reward money, but now I see it is true--the most astounding thing a man ever tried.”
”Did he send you to me?”
”No, child. I have not seen him.”
”Father Bertrand Ballard! Have you taken some detective's word and not even tried to see him?”
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