epellent
with every successive sentence.

"You fool!" said he, coming one heavy step nearer, and frowning down
upon her; "I warned you away; I told you to be silent. You've meddled
with what was no concern of yours; you've thrust yourself where you had
no right to come--"

"No right!" she interrupted, with an intensity of indignant emphasis
that seemed adequate to smite to the ground the towering figure that
faced her. Then, clasping her hands, and in a voice of yearning,
ineffable tenderness, she added, "Oh, I have prayed for you, and wept
for you, and loved you so! For your own sake, my darling, do not use
such words to me!" Here she held out her arms, and tears ran hot down
her faded cheeks. "Am I not your mother? Are you not my son?"

"No!" answered Bressant.

He threw so tremendous a weight of malignant energy into the utterance
of this single word, although not raising his voice higher than his
usual tone, that the moral effect upon the woman was as if he had dealt
her a furious blow on the breast. Completely stunned at first, she stood
as if dead, except that her body, upright and rigid, vibrated slightly
from side to side, like a column about to fall. So sudden, too, had been
the shock, that her arms still remained outstretched, and the track of
her tears still glistened upon her cheeks, tears shed so utterly in vain
as to acquire a trait of ghastly absurdity.

As sense and reflection began to dawn again, the first instinctive
defence she attempted was that of incredulity. It was to gain
breathing-space rather than from any hope in its efficacy. But
afterward, following the ability to hear and the capacity to comprehend,
the grim reality settled darkly down. Her life for the last twenty-five
years, then, had been a miserable blunder; her love, hopes, and fears
wasted, and turned to ridicule; her self-sacrifice, a wretched
self-deception, a throwing of all possibilities of happiness into the
bottomless pit, whence no return could ever come to her; every thought,
aspiration, and desire, which had visited her heart had been a
mockery--meaningless and empty. This was the reality to which she was
awakened. And, lest this should not be sufficient, here stood one before
whom she had abased and humbled herself, whose insolence she had borne
meekly and lovingly, whose feet she had set upon her neck. Here he
stood, insolent and unfeeling still; a false impostor, whom might God
refuse to pardon!

And who and what w