“It would have been a rash venture,” said she, fiercely; “If you mean for me, that was the very reason I thought of it. What other game than the rash one is open to a mau like me?”
“Who ever had the safer road to fortune if he could have walked with the commonest prudence?” said she, bitterly.
“How can you say that? Talk of prudence to the man who has no fortune, no family, not even a name,—no!” cried he, fiercely; “for by the first Maitland I met I might be challenged to say from what stock I came. He could have saved me from all this. Nothing was ever easier. You yourself asked,—ay, begged this. You told me you begged it on your knees; and I own, if I never forgave him for refusing, I have never forgiven you for the entreaty.”
“And I would do it again to-day!” cried she, passionately. “Let him but acknowledge you, Norman, and he may turn me out upon the world houseless and a beggar, and I will bless him for it!”
“What a curse is on the bastard,” broke he ont, in a savage vehemence, “if it robs him of every rightful sentiment, and poisons even a mother's love! Do not talk to me this way, or you will drive me mad!”
“Oh, Norman! my dear, dear Norman!” cried she, passionately; “it is not yet too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“Not too late to gain back his favor. When he saw the letter in the King's hand, calling you Count of Amalfi, he said: 'This looks ill for the monarchy. I have a Scotch earldom myself in my family granted by another king the day after he had lost his own crown.' Try, then, if you cannot rally to the cause those men who are so much under your influence that as you have often told me they only wanted to be assured of your devotion to pledge their own. If he could believe the cause triumphant, there is nothing he would not do to uphold it.”
“Yes,” said he, thoughtfully, “there never lived the man who more worshipped success! The indulgences that he heaped upon myself were merely offerings to a career of insolent triumph.”
“You never loved him, Norman,” said she, sadly.