opinion in
this matter. You must not blame her for refusing to admit you into
her confidence after your marriage: it was then too late. Before your
marriage she did all she could do--without betraying secrets which, as
a good mother, she was bound to respect--to induce her son to act justly
toward you. I commit no indiscretion when I tell you that she refused
to sanction your marriage mainly for the reason that Eustace refused to
follow her advice, and to tell you what his position really was. On my
part I did all I could to support Mrs. Macallan in the course that she
took. When Eustace wrote to tell me that he had engaged himself to marry
a niece of my good friend Doctor Starkweather, and that he had mentioned
me as his reference, I wrote back to warn him that I would have nothing
to do with the affair unless he revealed the whole truth about himself
to his future wife. He refused to listen to me, as he had refused to
listen to his mother; and he held me at the same time to my promise to
keep his secret. When Starkweather wrote to me, I had no choice but to
involve myself in a deception of which I thoroughly disapproved, or to
answer in a tone so guarded and so brief as to stop the correspondence
at the outset. I chose the last alternative; and I fear I have offended
my good old friend. You now see the painful position in which I am
placed. To add to the difficulties of that situation, Eustace came here
this very day to warn me to be on my guard, in case of your addressing
to me the very request which you have just made! He told me that you had
met with his mother, by an unlucky accident, and that you had discovered
the family name. He declared that he had traveled to London for the
express purpose of speaking to me personally on this serious subject.
'I know your weakness,' he said, 'where women are concerned. Valeria is
aware that you are my old friend. She will certainly write to you; she
may even be bold enough to make her way into your house. Renew your
promise to keep the great calamity of my life a secret, on your honor
and on your oath. 'Those were his words, as nearly as I can remember
them. I tried to treat the thing lightly; I ridiculed the absurdly
theatrical notion of 'renewing my promise,' and all the rest of it.
Quite useless! He refused to leave me; he reminded me of his unmerited
sufferings, poor fellow, in the past time. It ended in his bursting into
tears. You love him, and so do I. Can you wonder th