I trust my honour
and my happiness to you, absolutely.
MRS. HAVERILL. They will both be safe, John, in my keeping. But there
is something else that I wish to speak with you about; something very
near to your heart--your son!
HAVERILL. My son!
MRS. HAVERILL. He is in Charleston.
HAVERILL. And not--in prison? To me he is nowhere. I am childless.
MRS. HAVERILL. I hope to see him to-day; may I not take him some kind
word from you?
HAVERILL. My lawyers in New York had instructions to provide him with
whatever he needed.
MRS. HAVERILL. They have done so, and he wants for nothing; he asks
for nothing, except that I will seek out the poor young wife--only a
girl herself--whom he is obliged to desert, in New York.
HAVERILL. His marriage was a piece of reckless folly, but I forgave
him that.
MRS. HAVERILL. I am sure that it was only after another was dependent
on him that the debts of a mere spendthrift were changed to fraud--and
crime.
HAVERILL. You may tell him that I will provide for her.
MRS. HAVERILL. And may I take him no warmer message from his father?
HAVERILL. I am an officer of the United States Army. The name which
my son bears came to me from men who had borne it with honour, and I
transmitted it to him without a blot.
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