treatment may not
have made him? what resentment may have taken root in his young heart?
what distrust may have eaten into his nature? If I could but see him and
talk with him as a stranger,--if I could be able to judge him apart from
the influences that my own feelings would create,--even then, what would
it avail me? I have so sullied and tarnished a proud name that he could
never bear it without reproach. 'Who is this Lord Glencore?' people
would say. 'What is the strange story of his birth? Has any one yet
got at the truth? Was the father the cruel tyrant, or the mother the
worthless creature, we hear tell of? Is he even legitimate, and, if so,
why does he walk apart from his equals, and live without recognition
by his order?' This is the noble heritage I am to leave him,--this the
proud position to which he is to succeed! And yet Upton says that the
boy's rights are inalienable; that, think how I may, do what I will, the
day on which I die, he is the rightful Lord Glencore. His claim may lie
dormant, the proofs may be buried, but that, in truth and fact, he will
be what all my subterfuge and all my falsehood cannot deny him. And
then, if the day should come that he asserts his right,--if, by some
of those wonderful accidents that reveal the mysteries of the world,
he should succeed to prove his claim,--what a memory will he cherish
of _me!_ Will not every sorrow of his youth, every indignity of his
manhood, be associated with my name? Will he or can he ever forgive him
who defamed the mother and despoiled the son?"

In the terrible conflict of such thoughts as these he passed the night;
intervals of violent grief or passion alone breaking the sad connection
of such reflections, till at length the worn-out faculties, incapable
of further exercise, wandered away into incoherency, and he raved in all
the wildness of insanity.

It was thus that Upton found him on his arrival.

CHAPTER LII. MAJOR SCARESBY'S VISIT

Down the crowded thoroughfare of the Borgo d' Ognisanti the tide of
Carnival mummers poured unceasingly. Hideous masks and gay dominos,
ludicrous impersonations and absurd satires on costume, abounded, and
the entire population seemed to have given themselves up to merriment,
and were fooling it to the top o' their bent. Bands of music and
chorus-singers from the theatre filled the air with their loud strains,
and carriages crowded with fantastic figures moved past, pelting the
bystanders with mock swe