human
What are you thinking about, Noah?
gpt
The shocking story you have just told me. I did not think it possible, Mother, that you could be so bad.
human
What do you mean?
gpt
I mean what I say. If this story does not lower you in your own eyes, it does in mine. Mother, I have always respected and venerated you till this moment; I can do so no longer. For, mark me, Mother, as the tree is, so is the fruit. How can you expect me, the offspring of such guilt, ever to be a good man?
human
Noah, this is strange language from you! Thank God! you have done nothing at present to cause me shame or reproach.
gpt
You don't know what I have done--what this confession of yours may tempt me to do. God knows, I would rather have been the son of the despised and injured man whose name I bear, than the bastard of the silken reprobate it was your shame to love.
human
Oh, Noah! do not speak thus of your own father.
gpt
Curse him! He has already met with his reward. And your sin, Mother, will yet find you out.
human
Noah, I have not deserved this treatment from you. Whatever my faults may have been, I have been a kind mother to you.
gpt
I forgive you, my poor mother. I would that God could as easily pardon us both; but He is just as well as merciful, and we are great sinners.