He has taken his family to Mrs. Castleford's home
in the north of Ireland for a month or six weeks. I don't know the
address, and I cannot run the risk of the letter being opened at the
office.'
'Can't you speak to my father?'
'Impossible! it would be a betrayal. He would do things for which I
should never be forgiven. And, after all, remember, it is no
business of mine. I know of agents at the docks who do such things
as a matter of course. It is only that I happen to know that Harris
at Liverpool does not. Very possibly old Frith knows all about it.
I should only get scored down as a meddlesome prig, worse hypocrite
than they think me already.'
He said a good deal more to this effect, and I remember exclaiming,
'Oh, Clarence, the old story!' and then being frightened at the
whiteness that came over his face.
Little did I know the suffering to which those words of mine
condemned him. For not only had he to make up his mind to
resistance, which to his nature was infinitely worse than it was to
Griffith to face a raging mob, but he knew very well that it would
almost inevitably produce his own ruin, and renew the disgrace out
of which he was beginning to emerge. I did not--even while I prayed
that he might do the right--guess at his own agony of supplication,
carried on incessantly, day and night, sleeping and waking, that the
Holy Spirit of might should brace his will and govern his tongue,
and make him say the right thing at the right time, be the
consequences what they might.
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