Look at that woman" (indicating Ruth, who moved her drooping head a little on one side, as if by such motion she could avert the pitiless pointing--her face growing whiter and whiter still every instant)--"Look at that woman, I say--corrupt long before she was your age--hypocrite for years! If ever you, or any child of mine, cared for her, shake her off from you, as St.
Paul shook off the viper--even into the fire." He stopped for very want of breath. Jemima, all flushed and panting, went up and stood side by side with wan Ruth. She took the cold, dead hand which hung next to her in her warm convulsive grasp, and, holding it so tight that it was blue and discoloured for days, she spoke out beyond all power of restraint from her father. "Father! I will speak. I will not keep silence. I will bear witness to Ruth. I have hated her--so keenly, may God forgive me I but you may know, from that, that my witness is true. I have hated her, and my hatred was only quenched into contempt--not contempt now, dear Ruth--dear Ruth"--(this was spoken with infinite softness and tenderness, and in spite of her father's fierce eyes and passionate gesture)--"I heard what you have learnt now, father, weeks and weeks ago--a year it may be, all time of late has been so long; and I shuddered up from her and from her sin; and I might have spoken of it, and told it there and then, if I had not been afraid that it was from no good motive I should act in so doing, but to gain a way to the desire of my own jealous heart. Yes, father, to show you what a witness I am for Ruth, I will own that I was stabbed to the heart with jealousy; some one--some one cared for Ruth that--oh father! spare me saying all." Her face was double-dyed with crimson blushes, and she paused for one moment--no more. "I watched her, and I watched her with my wild-beast eyes. If I had seen one paltering with duty--if I had witnessed one flickering shadow of untruth in word or action--if, more than all things, my woman's instinct had ever been conscious of the faintest speck of impurity in thought, or word, or look, my old hate would have flamed out with the flame of hell! my contempt would have turned to loathing disgust, instead of my being full of pity, and the stirrings of new-awakened love, and most true respect. Father, I have borne my witness!" "And I will tell you how much your witness is worth," said her father, beginning low, that his pent-up wrath might have room to swell out. "It only convinces me more and more how deep is the corruption this wanton has spread in my family. She has come amongst us with her innocent seeming, and spread her nets well and skilfully. She has turned right into wrong, and wrong into right, and taught you all to be uncertain whether there be any such thing as Vice in the world, or whether it ought not to be looked upon as Virtue. She has led you to the brink of the deep pit, ready for the first chance circumstance to push you in. And I trusted--I trusted her--I welcomed her." "I have done very wrong," murmured Ruth, but so low, that perhaps he did not hear her, for he went on lashing himself up. "I welcomed her. I was duped into allowing her bastard--(I sicken at the thought of it)----" At the mention of Leonard, Ruth lifted up her eyes for the first time since the conversation began, the pupils dilating, as if she were just becoming aware of some new agony in store for her. I have seen such a look of terror on a poor dumb animal's countenance, and once or twice on human faces;I pray I may never see it again on either! Jemima felt the hand she held in her strong grasp writhe itself free. Ruth spread her arms before her, clasping and lacing her fingers together, her head thrown a little back as if in intensest suffering. Mr. Bradshaw went on-- "That very child and heir of shame to associate with my own innocent children!
I trust they are not contaminated." "I cannot bear it--I cannot bear it!" were the words wrung out of Ruth. "Cannot bear it! cannot bear it!" he repeated. "You must bear it, madam.
Do you suppose your child is to be exempt from the penalties of his birth?
Do you suppose that he alone is to be saved from the upbraiding scoff?
Do you suppose that he is ever to rank with other boys, who are not stained and marked with sin from their birth? Every creature in Eccleston may know what he is; do you think they will spare him their scorn? 'Cannot bear it,' indeed! Before you went into your sin, you should have thought whether you could bear the consequences or not--have had some idea how far your offspring would be degraded and scouted, till the best thing that could happen to him would be for him to be lost to all sense of shame, dead to all knowledge of guilt, for his mother's sake." Ruth spoke out. She stood like a wild creature at bay, past fear now. "Iappeal to God against such a doom for my child. I appeal to God to help me. I am a mother, and as such I cry to God for help--for help to keep my boy in His pitying sight, and to bring him up in His holy fear. Let the shame fall on me! I have deserved it, but he--he is so innocent and good." Ruth had caught up her shawl, and was tying on her bonnet with her trembling hands. What if Leonard was hearing of her shame from common report? What would be the mysterious shock of the intelligence? She must face him, and see the look in his eyes, before she knew whether he recoiled from her;he might have his heart turned to hate her, by their cruel jeers. Jemima stood by, dumb and pitying. Her sorrow was past her power. She helped in arranging the dress, with one or two gentle touches, which were hardly felt by Ruth, but which called out all Mr. Bradshaw's ire afresh; he absolutely took her by the shoulders and turned her by force out of the room. In the hall, and along the stairs, her passionate woeful crying was heard. The sound only concentrated Mr. Bradshaw's anger on Ruth. He held the street-door open wide, and said, between his teeth, "If ever you, or your bastard, darken this door again, I will have you both turned out by the police!" He needed not have added this if he had seen Ruth's face.
