a belief entails,"

For a long time the young fellow stood there without stirring,
pallid, his dark, expressionless eyes, fixed on space. And after a
while he spoke.

"Colonel Arran, I had rather than all the happiness on earth, that
you had left me the memory of my mother. You have chosen not to do
so. And now, do you think I am likely to exchange what she and I
really are, for anything more respectable that you believe you can
offer?

"How, under God, you could have punished her as you did--how you
could have reconciled your conscience to the invocation of a brutal
law which rehabilitated you at the expense of the woman who had
been your wife--how you could have done this in the name of duty
and of conscience, I can not comprehend.

"I do not believe that one drop of your blood runs in my veins."

He bent forward, laying his hands flat on the cloth, then gripping
it fiercely in clenched fists:

"All I want of you is what was my mother's. I bear the name she
gave me; it pleased her to bestow it; it is good enough for me to
wear. If it be hers only, or if it was also my father's, I do not
know; but that name, legitimate or otherwise, is not for exchange!
I will keep it, Colonel Arran. I am what I am."

He hesitated, rigid, clenching and unclenching his hands--then drew
a deep, agonised breath:

"I suppose you have meant to be just to me, I wish you might have
dealt more mercifully with my mother. As for what you have done to
me--well--if she was illegally my mother, I had rather be her
illegitimate son than the son of any woman who ever lived within
the law. Now may I have her letters?"

"Is that your decision, Berkley?"

"It is. I want only her letters from you--and any little
keepsakes--relics--if there be any----"

"I offer to recognise you as my son."

"I decline--believing that you mean to be just--and perhaps
kind--God knows what you do mean by disinterring the dead for a son
to look back upon----"

"Could I have offered you what I offer, otherwise?"

"Man! Man! _You_ have nothing to offer _me_! Your silence was
the only kindness you could have done me! You have killed
something in me. I don't know what, yet--but I think it was the
best part of me."

"Berkley, do you suppose that I have entered upon this matter
lightly?"

Berkley laughed, showing his teeth. "No. It was your damned
conscience; and I suppose you couldn't strangle it. I am sorry you
couldn't. Sometimes a str