ite's danger, the wild terrors that his fears had conjured up, his
almost frantic agony at the sight of the accident, had lashed him into
passion well-nigh delirious.

"Out of my sight, sir," he said fiercely, his mellow tones quivering
with rage. "I wish to God you had been dead in a ditch before a hair of
my boy's had been touched. You live, and he lies dying there!"

Cecil bowed in silence; the brutality of the words wounded, but they did
not offend him, for he knew his father was in that moment scarce better
than a maniac, and he was touched with the haggard misery upon the old
Peer's face.

"Out of my sight, sir," re-echoed Lord Royallieu as he strode forward,
passion lending vigor to his emaciated frame, while the dignity of his
grand carriage blent with the furious force of his infuriated blindness.
"If you had had the heart of a man, you would have saved such a child as
that from his peril; warned him, watched him, succored him at least when
he fell. Instead of that, you ride on and leave him to die, if death
comes to him! You are safe, you are always safe. You try to kill
yourself with every vice under heaven, and only get more strength, more
grace, more pleasure from it--you are always safe because I hate you.
Yes! I hate you, sir!"

No words can give the force, the malignity, the concentrated meaning
with which the words were hurled out, as the majestic form of the
old Lord towered in the shadow, with his hands outstretched as if in
imprecation.

Cecil heard him in silence, doubting if he could hear aright, while the
bitter phrases scathed and cut like scourges, but he bowed once more
with the manner that was as inseparable from him as his nature.

"Hate is so exhausting; I regret I give you the trouble of it. May I ask
why you favor me with it?"

"You may!" thundered his father, while his hawk's eyes flashed their
glittering fire. "You are like the man I cursed living and curse dead.
You look at me with Alan Bertie's eyes, you speak to me with Alan
Bertie's voice; I loved your mother, I worshiped her; but--you are his
son, not mine!"

The secret doubt, treasured so long, was told at last. The blood
flushed Bertie's face a deep and burning scarlet; he started with an
irrepressible tremor, like a man struck with a shot; he felt like one
suddenly stabbed in the dark by a sure and a cruel hand. The insult and
the amazement of the words seemed to paralyze him for the moment, the
next he recovered himsel