"I won't believe it, Lord Spunyarn," almost shouted the young man with uncontrollable fury. "Have you, my father and my mother, been hatching this infernal plot between you all these years? Can the dead man's hand strike me, even from beyond the grave? I won't believe it, it isn't true. I'll fight it in the Courts. What does Lord Pit Town say? Does he give a tacit consent to my undoing?"
"Pit Town as yet knows nothing. Lucius, try to be calm. Listen to me," and as gently as he could he broke to the indignant boy the dismal fact of his heritage of shame, that he was but Reginald Haggard's love-child after all.
"And my mother?" said the boy in a broken voice.
"No need to speak of her, Lucius; she is dead."
"Have you the proofs, Lord Spunyarn, of all this?" said the boy more calmly, after he had listened to Spunyarn's narrative in silence. "It'll have to be proved, you know, proved to the hilt; that at least is my right, and I'll not forego it."
"Lucius, you have no rights."
"I must see the proofs, at least."
"Yes, you must see them, I suppose, but spare your mother, Lucius; she is broken down with grief and suffering."
"Lord Spunyarn," said the boy coldly, "you say she is not my mother; why should I spare the feelings of my father's accomplice? Feelings forsooth;" and he laughed bitterly.