he spoke; but
Herbert said nothing--nothing out loud. "If it were only for myself!
if it were only for myself!" It was thus that he spoke to his own
heart.

"Mr. Fitzgerald," continued the lawyer, "I do not know how far you
may be acquainted with the history of your mother's first marriage."

Herbert said that he was hardly acquainted with it in any degree;
and explained that he merely knew the fact that his mother had been
married before she met Sir Thomas.

"I do not know that I need recount all the circumstances to you
now, though doubtless you will learn them. Your mother's conduct
throughout was, I believe, admirable."

"I am quite sure of that. No amount of evidence could make me believe
the contrary."

"And there is no tittle of evidence to make any one think so. But
in her early youth, when she was quite a child, she was given in
marriage to a man--to a man of whom it is impossible to speak in
terms too black, or in language too strong. And now, this day--"

But here he paused. It had been his intention to say that that very
man, the first husband of this loved mother now looked upon as dead
for so many years, this miscreant of whom he had spoken--that this
man had been in that room that very day. But he hardly knew how to
frame the words.

"Well," said Herbert, "well;" and he spoke in a hoarse voice that was
scarcely audible.

Mr. Prendergast was afraid to bring out the very pith of his story in
so abrupt a manner. He wished to have the work over, to feel, that as
regarded Herbert it was done,--but his heart failed him when he came
to it.

"Yes," he said, going back as it were to his former thoughts. "A
heartless, cruel, debauched, unscrupulous man; one in whose bosom no
good thing seemed to have been implanted. Your father, when he first
knew your mother, had every reason to believe that this man was
dead."

"And he was not dead?" Mr. Prendergast could see that the young man's
face became perfectly pale as he uttered these words. He became pale,
and clutched hold of the table with his hand, and there sat with
mouth open and staring eyes.

"I am afraid not," said Mr. Prendergast; "I am afraid not."

"And--"

"I must go further than that, and tell you that he is still living."

"Mr. Prendergast, Mr. Prendergast!" exclaimed the poor fellow,
rising up from his chair and shouting out as though for mercy. Mr.
Prendergast also rose from his seat, and coming up to him took him by
the arm. "My dea