d yet more repellent
by passion, replied, "Boy! your presumption is insufferable. What to
me is your wretched fate? Go, go, go to your miserable mother: find her
out; claim kindred there; live together, toil together, rot together,
but come not to me! disgrace to my house, ask not admittance to my
affections; the law may give you my name, but sooner would I be torn
piecemeal than own your right to it. If you want money, name the sum,
take it: cut up my fortune to shreds, seize my property, revel on it;
but come not here. This house is sacred; pollute it not: I disown you; I
discard you; I,--ay, I detest,--I loathe you!"

And with these words, which came forth as if heaved from the inmost
heart of the speaker, who shook with the fury he endeavoured to stifle,
he fell back into his chair, and fixed his eyes, which glared fearfully
through the increasing darkness upon Linden, who stood high, erect, and
sorrowfully before him.

"Alas, my lord!" said Clarence, with mournful bitterness, "have not the
years which have seared your form and whitened your locks brought some
meekness to your rancour, some mercy to your injustice, for one whose
only crime against you seems to have been his birth. But I said I came
not to reproach, nor do I. Many a bitter hour, many a pang of shame and
mortification and misery, which have made scars in my heart that will
never wear away, my wrongs have cost me; but let them pass. Let them not
swell your future and last account whenever it be required. I am about
to leave this country, with a heavy and foreboding heart; we may never
meet again on earth. I have no longer any wish, any chance, of resuming
the name you have deprived me of. I shall never thrust myself on your
relationship or cross your view. Lavish your wealth upon him whom you
have placed so immeasurably above me in your affections. But I have not
deserved your curse, Father; give me your blessing, and let me depart in
peace."

"Peace! and what peace have I had? what respite from gnawing shame, the
foulness and leprosy of humiliation and reproach, since--since--? But
this is not your fault, you say: no, no,--it is another's; and you are
only the mark of my stigma; my disgrace, not its perpetrator. Ha! a nice
distinction, truly. My blessing you say! Come, kneel; kneel, boy, and
have it!"

Clarence approached, and stood bending and bareheaded before his father,
but he knelt not.

"Why do you not kneel?" cried the old man, vehemently