“And are you ready to face what may follow?”
“If you mean as regards myself, I am quite ready. My father threw me off years ago, and I am better able to fight the battle of life now than I was then. I ask nothing of him,—not even his name. If you speak of other consequences,—of what may ensue when his hosts shall learn the fraud he has practised on them—” It was only as the fatal word fell from me that I felt how cruelly I had spoken, and I stopped and took her hand in mine, saying, “Do not be angry with me, dear friend, that I have spoken a bitter word; bear with me for her sake, who has none to befriend her but myself.”
She made me no answer, but looked out cold and stern into vacancy, her pale features motionless, not a line or lineament betraying what was passing within her.
“Why remain here then to provoke a catastrophe?” cried she, suddenly. “If you have come for pleasure, you see enough to be aware there is little more awaiting you.”
“I have not come for pleasure. I am here to confer with Count Hunyadi on a matter of business.”
“And will some paltry success in a little peddling contract for the Count's wine or his olives or his Indian corn compensate you for the ruin you may bring on your father? Will it recompense you if his blood be shed?”
There was a tone of defiant sarcasm in the way she spoke these words that showed me, if I would not yield to her persuasions, she would not hesitate to employ other means of coercion. Perhaps she mistook the astonishment my face expressed for terror; for she went on: “It would be well that you thought twice over it ere you make your breach with your father irreparable. Remember, it is not a question of a passing sentimentality or a sympathy, it is the whole story of your life is at issue,—if you be anything, or anybody, or a nameless creature, without belongings or kindred.”
I sat for some minutes in deep thought. I was not sure whether I understood her words, and that she meant to say it lay entirely with my father to own or disown me, as he pleased. She seemed delighted at my embarrassment, and her voice rung out with its own clear triumphant cadence, as she said, “You begin at last to see how near the precipice you have been straying.”
“One moment, Madam,” cried I. “If my mother be Lady Norcott, Sir Roger cannot disown me; not to say that already, in an open court, he has maintained his right over me and declared me his son.”
“You are opening a question I will not touch, Digby,” said she, gravely,—“your mother's marriage. I will only say that the ablest lawyers your father has consulted pronounce it more than questionable.”