“True!  That’s just what I was coming at.  The evil in its broadest expanse is there.  We look calmly on the external objects of the system without solving its internal grievances,—­we build a right upon the ruins of ancient wrongs, and we swathe our thoughts with inconsistency that we may make the curse of a system invulnerable.  It is not that we cannot do good under a bad system, but that we cannot ameliorate it, lest we weaken the foundation.  And yet all this seems as nothing when I recall a sin of greater magnitude-a sin that is upon me-a hideous blot, goading my very soul, rising up against me like a mountain, over which I can see no pass.  Again the impelling force of conscience incites me to make a desperate effort; but conscience rebukes me for not preparing the way in time.  I could translate my feelings further, but, in doing so, the remedy seems still further from me-”

“Is it ever too late to try a remedy-to make an effort to surmount great impediments-to render justice to those who have suffered from such acts?” inquired Maxwell, interrupting Marston as he proceeded.

“If I could do it without sacrificing my honour, without exposing myself to the vengeance of the law.  We are great sticklers for constitutional law, while we care little for constitutional justice.  There is Clotilda; you see her, but you don’t know her history:  if it were told it would resound through the broad expanse of our land.  Yes, it would disclose a wrong, perpetrated under the smiles of liberty, against which the vengeance of high Heaven would be invoked.  I know the secret, and yet I dare not disclose it; the curse handed down from her forefathers has been perpetuated by me.  She seems happy, and yet she is unhappy; the secret recesses of her soul are poisoned.  And what more natural? for, by some unlucky incident, she has got an inkling of the foul means by which she was made a slave.  To him who knows the right, the wrong is most painful; but I bought her of him whose trade it was to sell such flesh and blood!  And yet that does not relieve me from the curse:  there’s the stain; it hangs upon me, it involves my inclinations, it gloats over my downfall-”

“You bought her!” again interrupts Maxwell.

“True,” rejoins the other, quickly, “’tis a trade well protected by our democracy.  Once bought, we cannot relieve ourselves by giving them rights in conflict with the claims of creditors.  Our will may be good, but the will without the means falls hopeless.  My heart breaks under the knowledge that those children are mine.  It is a sad revelation to make,—­sad in the eyes of heaven and earth.  My participation in wrong has proved sorrow to them:  how can I look to the pains and struggles they must endure in life, when stung with the knowledge that I am the cause of it?  I shall wither under the torture of my own conscience.  And there is even an interest about them that makes my feelings bound joyfully when I recur them.  Can it be aught but the fruit of natural affection?  I think not; and yet I am compelled to disown them, and even to smother with falsehood the rancour that might find a place in Franconia’s bosom.  Clotilda loves Annette with a mother’s fondness; but with all her fondness for her child she dare not love me, nor I the child.”