He was faint with the strong power of his own conviction, and with his inability to move his sister. But she was shaken. She sat very still for a quarter of an hour or more while he leaned back, exhausted by his own feelings. "The poor child!" said she at length--"the poor, poor child! what it will have to struggle through and endure! Do you remember Thomas Wilkins, and the way he threw the registry of his birth and baptism back in your face?
Why, he would not have the situation; he went to sea, and was drowned, rather than present the record of his shame." "I do remember it all. It has often haunted me. She must strengthen her child to look to God, rather than to man's opinion. It will be the discipline, the penance, she has incurred. She must teach it to be (humanly speaking)self-dependent." "But after all," said Miss Benson (for she had known and esteemed poor Thomas Wilkins, and had mourned over his untimely death, and the recollection thereof softened her)--"after all, it might be concealed. The very child need never know its illegitimacy." "How?" asked her brother. "Why--we know so little about her yet; but in that letter, it said she had no friends;--now, could she not go into quite a fresh place, and be passed off as a widow?" Ah, tempter! unconscious tempter! Here was a way of evading the trials for the poor little unborn child, of which Mr. Benson had never thought.
It was the decision--the pivot, on which the fate of years moved; and he turned it the wrong way. But it was not for his own sake. For himself, he was brave enough to tell the truth; for the little helpless baby, about to enter a cruel, biting world, he was tempted to evade the difficulty.
He forgot what he had just said, of the discipline and the penance to the mother consisting in strengthening her child to meet, trustfully and bravely, the consequences of her own weakness. He remembered more clearly the wild fierceness, the Cain-like look, of Thomas Wilkins, as the obnoxious word in the baptismal registry told him that he must go forth branded into the world, with his hand against every man's, and every man's against him. "How could it be managed, Faith?" "Nay, I must know much more, which she alone can tell us, before I can see how it is to be managed. It is certainly the best plan." "Perhaps it is," said her brother thoughtfully, but no longer clearly or decidedly; and so the conversation dropped. Ruth moved the bed-curtain aside, in her soft manner, when Miss Benson re-entered the room; she did not speak, but she looked at her as if she wished her to come near. Miss Benson went and stood by her. Ruth took her hand in hers and kissed it; as if fatigued even by this slight movement, she fell asleep. Miss Benson took up her work, and thought over her brother's speeches.
She was not convinced, but she was softened and bewildered.