Benson sat thinking.
"If you had not known Ruth as well as you do--if, during her stay
with us, you had marked anything wrong, or forward, or deceitful,
or immodest, I would say at once, 'Don't allow Mr. Bradshaw to
take her into his house'; but still I would say, 'Don't tell of her
sin and sorrow to so severe a man--so unpitiful a judge.' But here
I ask you, Thurstan, can you or I, or Sally (quick-eyed as she
is), say, that in any one thing we have had true, just occasion
to find fault with Ruth? I don't mean that she is perfect--she
acts without thinking, her temper is sometimes warm and hasty;
but have we any right to go and injure her prospects for life, by
telling Mr. Bradshaw all we know of her errors--only sixteen when
she did so wrong, and never to escape from it all her many years
to come--to have the despair which would arise from its being
known, clutching her back into worse sin? What harm do you think
she can do? What is the risk to which you think you are exposing
Mr. Bradshaw's children?" She paused, out of breath, her eyes
glittering with tears of indignation, and impatient for an answer
that she might knock it to pieces.
"I do not see any danger that can arise," said he at length, and
with slow difficulty, as if not fully convinced. "I have watched
Ruth, and I believe she is pure and truthful; and the very sorrow
and penitence she has felt--the very suffering she has gone
through--has given her a thoughtful conscientiousness beyond her
age.
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