And then, as he went on thinking, the horror of it overpowered him more and more. Most men when they are in trouble preserve the love of those who are dear to them--nay, have it lavished upon them, to make up for their suffering, even when their suffering is their own fault. But Edgar would have to relinquish all love--even his sister’s--and it was no fault of his. No unborn babe could be more innocent than he was of any complicity in the deception. He had been its victim all his life; and now that he had escaped from its first tyranny, must he be a greater victim still--a more hopeless sacrifice? Oh, God, what injustice! What hateful and implacable tyranny! And the flame of a candle would set everything right again--a momentary spark, the scented, evanescent gleam with which he lit his cigar--the cigar itself falling by chance on the papers. And were there not a hundred such chances occurring every day? Less than that had been known to sweep a young, fair, blooming, beloved creature, for whose sweet life all the estates in the world would not be an equivalent, out of the world. And yet no spark fell to burn up those pieces of paper which would cost Edgar everything that made life dear. He had been standing all this while against the trunk of the tree, pondering and pondering. He was startled by a gamekeeper passing at a distance, who took off his hat respectfully to his master. His master? Couldn’t the fellow see? Edgar felt a strong momentary inclination to call out to him--No; not to me. I have no right to your obeisance, not much right even to your respect. I am an impostor--a man paltering with temptation. Should he break the charmed whispering silence, and shout these words out to the winds, and deliver his soul for ever? No. For did not the leaves and the winds and the tender grass and the buzzing insects unite in one voice--Hush! Hush! Hush! Such was the word which Nature kept whispering, whispering in his ear. CHAPTER XII.