My daughter may die from shock or shame,
but she will never cloud your son's prospects with the obloquy
which has settled over her own. Judge Ostrander, I am not worthy
of such a child, but such she is. If John--"
"We will not speak his name," broke in Judge Ostrander, assuming a
peremptory bearing quite unlike his former one of dignified
reserve. "I should like to hear, instead, your explanation of how
my son became inveigled into an engagement of which you, if no one
else, knew the preposterous nature."
"Judge Ostrander, you do right to blame me. I should never have
given my consent, never. But I thought our past so completely
hidden--our identity so entirely lost under the accepted name of
Averill."
"You thought!" He towered over her in his anger. He looked and
acted as in the old days, when witnesses cowered under his eye and
voice. "Say that you KNEW, madam; that you planned this unholy
trap for my son. You had a pretty daughter, and you saw to it that
she came under his notice; nay, more, ignoring the claims of
decency, you allowed the folly to proceed, if you did not help it
on in your misguided ambition to marry your daughter well."
"Judge Ostrander, I did not plan their meeting, nor did I at first
encourage his addresses. Not till I saw the extent of their mutual
attachment, did I yield to the event and accept the consequences.
But I was wrong, wholly wrong to allow him to visit her a second
time; but now that the mischief is done--"
Judge Ostrander was not listening.
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