not
murmur. But Gerald will suffer and Eulalia will suffer. And for some
weeks I have made you unhappy. How sad you look, dear."

"I am a very happy man, Rosa, compared with what I was before you told
me this strange story. But I am very serious, because I want to be
sure of doing what is right in these difficult premises. As for Gerald
and Eulalia, their acquaintance has been very short, and I don't think
they have spoken of love to each other. Their extreme youth is also
a favorable circumstance. Rochefoucault says, 'Absence extinguishes
small passions, and increases great ones.' My own experience proved
the truth of one part of the maxim; but perhaps Gerald is of a more
volatile temperament, and will realize the other portion."

"And do you still love me as well as you ever did?" she asked.

He folded her more closely as he whispered, "I do, darling." And for
some minutes she wept in silence on his generous breast.

CHAPTER XXXI.

That evening young Fitzgerald was closeted two or three hours with
Mr. King. Though the disclosure was made with the utmost delicacy and
caution, the young man was startled and shocked; for he inherited
pride from both his parents, and he had been educated in the
prejudices of his grandfather. At first he flushed with indignation,
and refused to believe he was so disgraced.

"I don't see that you are disgraced, my young friend," replied Mr.
King. "The world might indeed so misjudge, because it is accustomed
to look only on externals; but there is no need that the world should
know anything about it. And as for your own estimate of yourself, you
were Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman before you knew this singular story,
and you are Mr. Fitzgerald the gentleman still."

"I am not so much of a philosopher," rejoined the young man. "I shall
not find it easy to endure the double stain of illegitimacy and
alliance with the colored race."

Mr. King regarded him with a friendly smile, as he answered: "Perhaps
this experience, which you find so disagreeable, may educate you to
more wisdom than the schools have done. It may teach you the great
lesson of looking beneath the surface into the reality of things, my
son. Legally you are illegitimate; but morally you are not so. Your
mother believed herself married to your father, and through all the
vicissitudes of her life she has proved herself a modest, pure, and
noble woman. During twenty years of intimate acquaintance, I have
never know