rld's Whitechapel Countess out for an airing,
infernally earnest about it, madly ludicrous; the schemer to catch his
word, the petticoated Shylock to bind him to the letter of it; now
persecuting, haunting him, now immoveable for obstinacy; malignant to
stay down in those vile slums and direct tons of sooty waters on his head
from its mains in the sight of London, causing the least histrionic of
men to behave as an actor. He beheld her a skull with a lamp behind the
eyeholes.

But this woman was the woman who made him a father; she was the mother of
the heir of the House; and the boy she clasped and suckled as her boy was
his boy. They met inseparably in that new life.

Truly, there could not be a woman of flesh so near to a likeness with the
beatific image of Feltre's worshipped Madonna!

The thought sparkled and darkened in Fleetwood's mind, as a star passing
into cloud. For an uproarious world claimed the woman, jeered at all
allied with her; at her husband most, of course:--the punctilious noodle!
the golden jackass, tethered and goaded! He had choice among the pick of
women: the daughter of the Old Buccaneer was preferred by the wiseacre
Coelebs. She tricked him cunningly and struck a tremendous return blow in
producing her male infant.

By the way, was she actually born in wedlock? Lord Levellier's assurances
regarding her origin were, by the calculation, a miser's shuffles to
clinch his bargain. Assuming the representative of holy motherhood to be
a woman of illegitimate birth, the history of the House to which the
spotted woman gave an heir would suffer a jolt when touching on her. And
altogether the history fumed rank vapours. Imagine her boy in his
father's name a young collegian! No commonly sensitive lad could bear the
gibes of the fellows raking at antecedents: Fleetwood would be the name
to start roars. Smarting for his name, the earl chafed at the boy's
mother. Her production of a man-child was the further and grosser
offence.

The world sat on him. His confession to some degree of weakness, even to
folly, stung his pride of individuality so that he had to soothe the pain
by tearing himself from a thought of his folly's partner, shutting
himself up and away from her. Then there was a cessation of annoyance,
flatteringly agreeable: which can come to us only of our having done the
right thing, young men will think. He felt at once warmly with the world,
enjoyed the world's kind shelter, and in return f