mother?" asked he, in a voice of sorrow,
through which something of scorn was detectable.

"Do I hold to it? Of course I hold to it! You know well the value it
has in his eyes. Without it he never would have consented--" She stopped
suddenly, and seemed to catch herself in time to prevent the utterance
of some rash avowal. "As it is," added she, "he told me so late as
yesterday that he has no rest nor peace, thinking over his brother's
son, and the great wrong he has done him."

"Let him think of the greater wrong he has done me!--of my youth that
he has wasted, and my manhood lost and shipwrecked. But for him and
his weak ambition, I had belonged to a party who would have prized
my ability and rewarded my courage. I would not find myself at thirty
brigaded with a set of low-hearted priests and seminarists, who have
no other weapons than treachery, nor any strategy but lies. If I have
squandered his fortune, he has beggared me in reputation. He does not
seem to remember these things. As to him whom he would prefer to me and
make his heir, I have seen him."

"You have seen him, Norman! When?--where?--how?" cried she, in wild
impatience.

"Yes, I even had a plan to let the uncle meet his promising nephew.
I speculated on bringing together two people more made for mutual
detestation than any other two in Europe."

"It would have been a rash venture," said she, fiercely; "If you mean
for _me_, that was the very reason I thought of it. What other game than
the rash one is open to a mau like _me?_"

"Who ever had the safer road to fortune if he could have walked with the
commonest prudence?" said she, bitterly.

"How can you say that? Talk of prudence to the man who has no fortune,
no family, not even a name,--no!" cried he, fiercely; "for by the first
Maitland I met I might be challenged to say from what stock I came. He
could have saved me from all this. Nothing was ever easier. You yourself
asked,--ay, begged this. You told me you begged it on your knees; and I
own, if I never forgave him for refusing, I have never forgiven you for
the entreaty."

"And I would do it again to-day!" cried she, passionately. "Let him but
acknowledge you, Norman, and he may turn me out upon the world houseless
and a beggar, and I will bless him for it!"

"What a curse is on the bastard," broke he ont, in a savage vehemence,
"if it robs him of every rightful sentiment, and poisons even a mother's
love! Do not talk to me this way, or