er offspring! I accept it not--I believe it not.
Oh, yes! you follow me now with your false kindness; and why? Because
your father--your vain, hollow, heartless father--"

"Hold!" said Beaufort, in a tone of such reproach, that it startled the
wild heart on which it fell; "it is my father you speak of. Let the son
respect the son."

"No--no--no! I will respect none of your race. I tell you your father
fears me. I tell you that my last words to him ring in his ears! My
wrongs! Arthur Beaufort, when you are absent I seek to forget them; in
your abhorred presence they revive--they--"

He stopped, almost choked with his passion; but continued instantly,
with equal intensity of fervour:

"Were yon tree the gibbet, and to touch your hand could alone save me
from it, I would scorn your aid. Aid! The very thought fires my
blood and nerves my hand. Aid! Will a Beaufort give me back my
birthright--restore my dead mother's fair name? Minion!--sleek, dainty,
luxurious minion!--out of my path! You have my fortune, my station, my
rights; I have but poverty, and hate, and disdain. I swear, again and
again, that you shall not purchase these from me."

"But, Philip--Philip," cried Beaufort, catching his arm; "hear one--hear
one who stood by your--"

The sentence that would have saved the outcast from the demons that were
darkening and swooping round his soul, died upon the young Protector's
lips. Blinded, maddened, excited, and exasperated, almost out of
humanity itself, Philip fiercely--brutally--swung aside the enfeebled
form that sought to cling to him, and Beaufort fell at his feet. Morton
stopped--glared at him with clenched hands and a smiling lip, sprung
over his prostrate form, and bounded to his home.

He slackened his pace as he neared the house, and looked behind; but
Beaufort had not followed him. He entered the house, and found Sidney
in the room, with a countenance so much more gay than that he had lately
worn, that, absorbed as he was in thought and passion, it yet did not
fail to strike him.

"What has pleased you, Sidney?" The child smiled.

"Ah! it is a secret--I was not to tell you. But I'm sure you are not the
naughty boy he says you are."

"He!--who?"

"Don't look so angry, Philip: you frighten me!"

"And you torture me. Who could malign one brother to the other?"

"Oh! it was all meant very kindly--there's been such a nice, dear,
good gentleman here, and he cried when he saw me, and said he knew dea