hard, in the high-strung accents which in
crises of great mental agony are common to the most self-restrained of
us, "you have been for twenty years a living lie! For twenty years
you have cheated and mocked me. For twenty years--in company with
a scoundrel whose name is a byword for all that is profligate and
base--you have laughed at me for a credulous and hood-winked fool; and
now, because I dared to raise my hand to that reckless boy, you confess
your shame, and glory in the confession!"

"Mother, dear mother!" cried the young man, in a paroxysm of grief, "say
that you did not mean those words; you said them but in anger! See, I am
calm now, and he may strike me if he will."

Lady Devine shuddered, creeping close, as though to hide herself in the
broad bosom of her son.

The old man continued: "I married you, Ellinor Wade, for your beauty;
you married me for my fortune. I was a plebeian, a ship's carpenter; you
were well born, your father was a man of fashion, a gambler, the friend
of rakes and prodigals. I was rich. I had been knighted. I was in favour
at Court. He wanted money, and he sold you. I paid the price he asked,
but there was nothing of your cousin, my Lord Bellasis and Wotton, in
the bond."

"Spare me, sir, spare me!" said Lady Ellinor faintly.

"Spare you! Ay, you have spared me, have you not? Look ye," he cried,
in sudden fury, "I am not to be fooled so easily. Your family are proud.
Colonel Wade has other daughters. Your lover, my Lord Bellasis, even
now, thinks to retrieve his broken fortunes by marriage. You have
confessed your shame. To-morrow your father, your sisters, all the
world, shall know the story you have told me!"

"By Heaven, sir, you will not do this!" burst out the young man.

"Silence, bastard!" cried Sir Richard. "Ay, bite your lips; the word is
of your precious mother's making!"

Lady Devine slipped through her son's arms and fell on her knees at her
husband's feet.

"Do not do this, Richard. I have been faithful to you for two-and-twenty
years. I have borne all the slights and insults you have heaped upon me.
The shameful secret of my early love broke from me when in your rage,
you threatened him. Let me go away; kill me; but do not shame me."

Sir Richard, who had turned to walk away, stopped suddenly, and his
great white eyebrows came together in his red face with a savage scowl.
He laughed, and in that laugh his fury seemed to congeal into a cold and
cruel hate.

"