e fallen already where the guilt was--and not there only. My son's
infamy defiles his brother's birthright, and puts his father to shame.
Even his sister's name--"

He stopped, shuddering. When he proceeded, his voice faltered, and his
head drooped low.

"I say it again:--you are below all reproach and all condemnation; but I
have a duty to perform towards my two who are absent, and I have a last
word to say to _you_ when that duty is done. On this page--" (as he
pointed to the family history, his tones strengthened again)--"on this
page there is a blank space left, after the last entry, for writing the
future events of your life. Here, then, if I still acknowledge you to
be my son; if I think your presence and the presence of my daughter
possible in the same house, must be written such a record of dishonour
and degradation as has never yet defiled a single page of this
book--here, the foul stain of your marriage, and its consequences, must
be admitted to spread over all that is pure before it, and to taint to
the last whatever comes after. This shall not be. I have no faith or
hope in you more. I know you now, only as an enemy to me and to my
house--it is mockery and hypocrisy to call you son; it is an insult to
Clara, and even to Ralph, to think of you as my child. In this record
your place is destroyed--and destroyed for ever. Would to God I could
tear the past from my memory, as I tear the leaf from this book!"

As he spoke, the hour struck; and the old French clock rang out gaily
the same little silvery chime which my mother had so often taken me
into her room to listen to, in the bygone time. The shrill, lively peal
mingled awfully with the sharp, tearing sound, as my father rent out
from the book before him the whole of the leaf which contained my name;
tore it into fragments, and cast them on the floor.

He rose abruptly, after he had closed the book again. His cheeks flushed
once more; and when he next spoke, his voice grew louder and louder
with every word he uttered. It seemed as if he still distrusted his
resolution to abandon me; and sought, in his anger, the strength of
purpose which, in his calmer mood, he might even yet have been unable to
command.

"Now, Sir," he said, "we treat together as strangers. You are Mr.
Sherwin's son--not mine. You are the husband of his daughter--not a
relation of my family. Rise, as I do: we sit together no longer in the
same room. Write!" (he pushed pen, ink, and paper