! wake, smile once more on your son!
I would have brought you money, but I could not have asked for your
blessing, then; mother, I ask it now!"

"If I had but known--if you had but written to me, my dear young
gentleman--but my offers had been refused, and--"

"Offers of a hireling's pittance to her; to her for whom my father
would have coined his heart's blood into gold! My father's wife!--his
wife!--offers--"

He rose suddenly, folded his arms, and facing Beaufort, with a fierce
determined brow, said:

"Mark me, you hold the wealth that I was trained from my cradle to
consider my heritage. I have worked with these hands for bread, and
never complained, except to my own heart and soul. I never hated, and
never cursed you--robber as you were--yes, robber! For, even were there
no marriage save in the sight of God, neither my father, nor Nature,
nor Heaven, meant that you should seize all, and that there should be
nothing due to the claims of affection and blood. He was not the less
my father, even if the Church spoke not on my side. Despoiler of the
orphan, and derider of human love, you are not the less a robber though
the law fences you round, and men call you honest! But I did not hate
you for this. Now, in the presence of my dead mother--dead, far from
both her sons--now I abhor and curse you. You may think yourself safe
when you quit this room-safe, and from my hatred you may be so but
do not deceive yourself. The curse of the widow and the orphan shall
pursue--it shall cling to you and yours--it shall gnaw your heart in the
midst of splendour--it shall cleave to the heritage of your son! There
shall be a deathbed yet, beside which you shall see the spectre of her,
now so calm, rising for retribution from the grave! These words--no, you
never shall forget them--years hence they shall ring in your ears,
and freeze the marrow of your bones! And now begone, my father's
brother--begone from my mother's corpse to your luxurious home!"

He opened the door, and pointed to the stairs. Beaufort, without a word,
turned from the room and departed. He heard the door closed and locked
as he descended the stairs; but he did not hear the deep groans and
vehement sobs in which the desolate orphan gave vent to the anguish
which succeeded to the less sacred paroxysm of revenge and wrath.

BOOK II.

CHAPTER I.

"Incubo. Look to the cavalier. What ails he?
. . . . .
Hostess. And in such g