“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.”