'Well?' said my mother, in a voice softer and more velvety still.
'What did she tell you?'
That tone ought to have convinced me of the folly, the worse than
folly, of saying another word to her.
'But I can conquer her,' I thought; 'I can conquer her yet. When she
comes to know all the piteousness of Winifred's case, she _must_
yield.'
'Yes, mother,' I cried, 'she is in all things the very opposite of
Tom. She has such a horror of sacrilege; she has such a dread of a
crime and a curse like this; she has such a superstitious belief in
the power of a dead man's curse to cling to the delinquent's
offspring, that, if she knew of what her father had done, she would
go mad--raving mad, mother--she would indeed!' And I fell hack on the
pillow exhausted.
'Well, Henry, and is this what you summoned me from my bed to tell
me--that Wynne's daughter will most likely object to share the
consequences of her father's crime? A very natural objection, and I
am really sorry for her; but further than that I have certainly no
affair with her.
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