fool too!"
"Hush, hush!" exclaimed the voice of Lord Sherbrooke, raised to a loud
tone. "Remember, my lord duke, that he is still my father!"
"Sir!" exclaimed the Earl, turning first upon his son, "I am your father
no longer! For you, duke, I see how the matter has gone with this vile
and treacherous knave whom I have fostered! But as sure as I am Earl of
Byerdale--"
"You are so no longer!" said a voice beside him, and at the same moment
a strong muscular hand was laid upon his shoulder, with a grasp that he
could not shake off:
The Earl turned fiercely round, and laid his hand upon his sword; but
his eyes lighted instantly on the fine stern countenance of Colonel
Green, who keeping his grasp firmly upon the shoulder of the other, bent
his dark eyes full upon his face.
The whole countenance and appearance of him whom we have called the Earl
of Byerdale became like a withered flower. The colour forsook his cheeks
and his lips; he grew pale, he grew livid; his proud head sunk, his
knees bent, he trembled in every limb; and when Green, at length, pushed
him from him, saying in a loud tone and with a stern brow, "Get thee
from me, Harry Sherbrooke!" he sank into a chair, unable to speak, or
move, or support himself.
In the meantime, his son had cast his eyes upon the ground, and remained
looking downwards with a look of pain, but not surprise; while treading
close upon the steps of Colonel Green appeared Wilton Brown with the
Lady Helen Oswald clinging to rather than leaning on his arm, and the
Earl of Sunbury on her right hand.
Those who were most surprised in the room were certainly the Duke and
Lady Laura, for they had been suddenly made witnesses to a strange scene
without having any key to the feelings, the motives, or the actions of
the performers therein; and the Duke gazed with quite sufficient wonder
upon all he saw, to drown and overcome all feelings of anger at
beholding Wilton so unexpectedly in the house of the Earl of Sunbury.
For a moment or two after the stern gesture of Green, there was silence,
as if every one else were too much afraid or too much surprised to
speak; and he also continued for a short space gazing sternly upon the
man before him, as if his mind laboured with all that he had to say. It
was not, however, to the person whom his presence seemed entirely to
have blasted, that he next addressed himself.
"My Lord of Sunbury," he said, "you see this man before me, and you also
mark how terrible to him is this sudden meeting w