A Broken Blossom, Vol. 3 of 3 by Florence Marryat

The reverie which followed this, to me, astounding revelation resulted in the decision that it was my duty to tell Mr. Lovett what I had overheard. I hardly know, at this period, whether I did right or wrong-whether I should have shown more wisdom in speaking to Tessie or to Ange herself-whether, in fact, any other course of action could have averted the calamity that so quickly followed it. But it can be well understood how difficult a part I had to play in warning my friends against the man who had wronged me. A thousand times during that night I told myself that I could not do it; that my motives would be misinterpreted, and that if Cave Charteris had failed in his allegiance to me, it was no reason he should be untrue to Angela Lovett. She evidently liked him. No girl of her modesty and virtuous bringing up could have said the words I had heard her say unless she meant them from the bottom of her heart. Yet she was so easily deceived. She was so much too credulous of the goodness of human nature to be fit to judge for herself. Had it been Tessie whom Charteris had selected for his attentions, I should have left them to their own devices. Tessie knew something of the world: her eyes had been opened to a part, at least, of its iniquity; but Ange was a perfect child, both in mind and experience. The complete faith she put in her father's saintliness was a proof of this, and I felt sure, upon reviewing the discovery I had made, that she would never have kept her relations with Mr. Charteris a secret from those she so much loved and trusted, had he not brought some powerful motive to bear upon her reticence.

What could he have said to persuade this child, who was all frank, ingenuous simplicity, that it was right to hold secret appointments with himself? And why, if his intentions towards her were what they should be, had he not at once avowed them to Mr. Lovett? He was free and independent-at liberty to choose a wife as he listed-and he could have no fear that the poverty-stricken minister would object to see one of his daughters well provided for.