uld not
consent to sacrifice your child, although you dared not give him such an
answer as would shut out all hope. There was another obstacle in his way.
This was a certain young fellow, who as well as Rust, had an eye on Kate,
and whom perhaps Kate did not think the worst man in the world. Rust
determined to be rid of him; so he basely slandered him to you; and you,
not suspecting Rust's veracity, as the knowledge which you already had of
his character should have induced you to do, rashly forbade his rival the
house; and I am sorry to say, added harsh words to the wrong which you
were already committing. I need not tell you who that young man was. He
came to me shortly afterward and told me what had occurred. He's a noble
fellow, for not one hard word or epithet did he breathe against you. He
said he was aware that for a long time back some person had been
endeavoring to poison your mind against him. He had observed it in the
gradual change of your manner, and in your avoiding his society. He had
hoped, he said, that in time, when you found out that his character was
fair and irreproachable, that these hard feelings would wear off, and you
could again meet as heretofore. But this was not to be. Instead of
diminishing, your hostility to him increased, until one day when he was in
your own house, you used language to him which left him no alternative but
to quit it forever. The charges which you made against him were very
grave, Jacob, and very vile; and when you made them you had no right to
withhold the name of the person on whose authority you accused him; but
you did; and although Ned might and did suspect one person, Michael Rust,
to be the kind friend to whom he owed your ill will, yet he had no proof
of it that would justify him in calling him to account. Ned had a hard
task before him; for the charge you made against him was that of harboring
evil thoughts and of cherishing unfair designs against your child. It was
a serious charge, and one that he could not refute; for a man's thoughts
are not susceptible of proof; all that he can do in justification, is to
point to his past life and say: 'Judge by that;' and unless Ned could
impeach the character of his traducer, of whom he was then ignorant, but
who now stands revealed in the person of Michael Rust, as great a
scoundrel as ever lived, he had no alternative but to submit, and to hope
that time would exculpate him. Now Jacob, even supposing Rust had not
confesse