Next day he called. Dolly was dangerously ill—so ill that Herminia couldn’t find it in her heart to dismiss the great doctor from her door without letting him see her. And Sir Anthony saw her. The child recognised him at once and rallied, and smiled at him. She stretched her little arms. She must surely get well if a gentleman who drove in so fine a carriage, and scattered sovereigns like ha’pennies, came in to prescribe for her. Sir Anthony was flattered at her friendly reception. Those thin small arms touched the grandfather’s heart.
“She will recover,” he said; “but she needs good treatment, delicacies, refinements.” Then he slipped out of the room, and spoke seriously to Herminia.
“Let her come to me,” he urged. “I’ll adopt her, and give her her father’s name. It will be better for herself; better for her future. She shall be treated as my granddaughter, well-taught, well-kept; and you may see her every six months for a fortnight’s visit. If you consent, I will allow you a hundred a year for yourself. Let bygones be bygones. For the child’s sake, say _yes!_ She needs so much that you can never give her!”
Poor Herminia was sore tried. As for the hundred a year, she couldn’t dream of accepting it; but like a flash it went through her brain how many advantages Dolly could enjoy in that wealthy household that the hard-working journalist could not possibly afford her. She thought of the unpaid bills, the empty cupboard, the wolf at the door, the blank outlook for the future. For a second, she half hesitated.
“Come, come!” Sir Anthony said; “for the child’s own sake; you won’t be so selfish as to stand in her way, will you?”
Those words roused Herminia to a true sense of her duty.
“Sir Anthony Merrick,” she said holding her breath, “that child is my child, and my dear dead Alan’s. I owe it to Alan—I owe it to her—to bring her up in the way that Alan would approve of. I brought her into the world; and my duty is to do what I can to discharge the responsibilities I then undertook to her. I must train her up to be a useful citizen. Not for thousands would I resign the delight and honour of teaching my child to those who would teach her what Alan and I believed to be pernicious; who would teach her to despise her mother’s life, and to reject the holy memory of her father. As I said to you before, that day at Perugia, so I say to you now, ‘Thy money perish with thee.’ You need never again come here to bribe me.”