s face, as
though it were a refreshing summer breeze.

The chill air made Michael shiver; but he knew by experience how
intolerable was that sense of suffocation, and he stood by patiently
until that deadly feeling had passed.

'Are you better now, Blake? My poor fellow, can you sit down and speak
to me?'

Then Cyril turned his face towards him, and Michael was shocked to see
how strained and haggard it looked.

'Does she know, too?'

'Not yet; her father will tell her.'

Then the poor boy shuddered from head to foot.

'They will make her give me up! O my God! how can I bear it? Burnett, I
think I shall go mad! Tell me it is not true--that my mother has not
lied to me all these years!'

'At least, she has lied for her son's sake.' But he knew how futile were
his words, as he saw the bitter contempt in Cyril's honest eyes.

'I will never forgive her! She has ruined my life! she has made me wish
that I were dead! I will never, never----'

But Michael interrupted him somewhat sternly:

'Hush! hush! You do not know what you are saying. She is your mother,
Blake--nothing can alter that fact.'

'She has deceived us all! No, I will not speak; nothing can make it
better or worse. If I lose Audrey, I do not care what becomes of me!'

Michael looked at him pityingly.

'Do you think you ought to marry her, Blake!'

Then Cyril flung away from him with a groan; even in his misery he
understood that appeal to his generosity. But he put it from him: he was
too much stunned, too dazed altogether, to follow out any train of
reasoning. In a vague sort of way he understood two facts: that he and
Kester and Mollie were disgraced, and that his mother--the mother whom
he adored--had deceived him. Beyond this he could not go. The human mind
has limits.

Afterwards, in the chill hour of darkness and solitude, Michael's words
would come back to him: 'Do you think you ought to marry her, Blake? Do
you think you ought to marry her?'

CHAPTER XXXVII

'I SHALL NEVER BE FREE'

'But there are true hearts which the sight
Of sorrow summons forth;
Though known in days of past delight,
We know not half their worth.'

BAYLY.

The words escaped from Michael almost unconsciously; he hardly knew that
he spoke them aloud; but in his inner consciousness he had no doubt at
all of the course that ought to be pursued. If he had been in Cyril's
place he would not h