said the clergyman (his rage now subsiding,
and tears supplying its place), "you have brought a scandal upon us all:
your sisters' reputation will be stamped with the colour of yours--my
good name will suffer: but that is trivial--your soul is lost to virtue,
to religion, to shame--"

"No, _indeed_!" cried Rebecca: "if you will but believe me."

"Do not I believe you? Have you not confessed?"

"You will not pretend to unsay what you have said," cried her eldest
sister: "that would be making things worse."

"Go, go out of my sight!" said her father. "Take your child with you to
your chamber, and never let me see either of you again. I do not turn
you out of my doors to-day, because I gave you my word I would not, if
you revealed your shame; but by to-morrow I will provide some place for
your reception, where neither I, nor any of your relations, shall ever
see or hear of you again."

Rebecca made an effort to cling around her father, and once more to
declare her innocence: but her sisters interposed, and she was taken,
with her reputed son, to the chamber where the curate had sentenced her
to remain, till she quitted his house for ever.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The curate, in the disorder of his mind, scarcely felt the ground he trod
as he hastened to the dean's house to complain of his wrongs. His name
procured him immediate admittance into the library, and the moment the
dean appeared the curate burst into tears. The cause being required of
such "very singular marks of grief," Mr. Rymer described himself "as
having been a few moments ago the happiest of parents; but that his peace
and that of his whole family had been destroyed by Mr. Henry Norwynne,
the dean's nephew."

He now entered into a minute recital of Henry's frequent visits there,
and of all which had occurred in his house that morning, from the
suspicion that a child was concealed under his roof, to the confession
made by his youngest daughter of her fall from virtue, and of her
betrayer's name.

The dean was astonished, shocked, and roused to anger: he vented
reproaches and menaces on his nephew; and "blessing himself in a virtuous
son, whose wisdom and counsel were his only solace in every care," sent
for William to communicate with him on this unhappy subject.

William came, all obedience, and heard with marks of amazement and
indignation the account of such black villainy! In perfect sympathy with
Mr. Rymer and his father, he allowed "