He struck his fist down upon the counterpane.
“By your love for me you shall know the truth! Judge me then—judge me then as you will. Hear me speak and make no answer till I have finished. Judge me then, and let me pass to my doom weighted with your judgment.”
“Father!”
“Renalt, I killed your mother!”
I fell back appalled. An instant—then I leaned forward and again held him in my arms.
“Ah!” his voice broke, swerved and recovered itself. “Not with this hand—my God, no—but surely and pitilessly none the less. Not a month after Modred was born I found my name and trust dishonored and by her. Listen! Speak nothing. You must know all! She had been in service in London before I married her—where, to this day I have never learned. I shall know soon—I shall know. She was friendless—a weak, irresponsible, beautiful young woman. I threw aside all for her sake, and my love grew tenfold in the act of combating the misfortune it brought me. I could love, Renalt—I could love. There was a passion in my fervor.”
He clasped his hands wildly and looked piercingly before him.
“How the old torment flames up in me at the last! I think I gave my soul to the wanton and I thought I had hers in exchange. What inspired fools love makes of us! My castle in Cloudland stood firm till that month after Modred’s birth. Then all in a day—a minute—it dissolved and vanished. I came upon her secretly gloating over a portrait—the miniature of a man. I saw—suspected—wrenched half the truth from her. Half the truth only, Renalt. When I wedded with her she had a child living. She whose love I had looked upon as a precious possession was all base and hollow, behind her beautiful personality. More—she had borne me three children; yet what affection she was capable of clung about the memory of her first passion. True, this spark had wearied of her, had dismissed her from his service—his service, you understand? And from the face of her child. Yet the long years of my passionate devotion weighed as nothing in the balance. I was the means ready to make of her an honest woman—that was all. An honest woman—my God!”
His teeth snapped together with a click; his dying eyes shone out, but their inspiration was demoniacal.
“In one thing only,” he went on in a low, hard voice, “the poor frail wretch was stable. That portrait—the miniature—she died refusing to reveal to me its identity. No threats, no cruelty availed. She kept her secret to the last.”