Ellen had accidentally
discovered it; and she had, therefore, been obliged to confess to
Ellen, and put trust in her. Everybody else in the house had been as
successfully deceived as I had been myself. When I heard this, I began
to have some hope that our family disgrace might remain unknown in the
town.
"I wrote to my brother, not telling him what had happened, but only
begging him to come back instantly. It was the bitterest part of all
the bitter misery I then suffered, to think of what I had now to tell
Joshua, and of what dreadful extremities his daughter's ruin might
drive him to. I strove hard to prepare myself for the time of coming
trial; but what really took place was worse than my worst forebodings.
"When my brother heard the shocking news I had to tell, and saw the
scrawled paper she had left for him, he spoke and acted as if he was
out of his mind. It was only charitable, only fair to his previous
character, to believe, as I then believed, that distress had actually
driven him, for the time, out of his senses. He declared that he would
go away instantly and search for her, and set others seeking for her
too. He said, he even swore, that he would bring her back home the
moment he found her; that he would succor her in her misery, and accept
her penitence, and shelter her under his roof the same as ever, without
so much as giving a thought to the scandal and disgrace that her
infamous situation would inflict on her family.
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