"My God!" he cried; "I refuse to believe it, I refuse to believe one word of it!"
With her clear, pitiless voice, she went on telling him what would happen.
"You have one resource," she said, "and I tell you quite honestly about it; when you are of age you can remarry this person if you wish."
He sprung from his seat with a cry of wounded pain and love.
"Mother, is it really true?" he asked. "I married that young girl before Heaven, and you tell me that if I persist in returning to her she loses her fair name! If it be so, you have done a very cruel thing."
"It is so," said my lady, coldly. "I grant that it seems cruel, but better that than tarnish the name of a whole race."
"I shall remarry Leone, mother, the day after I am twenty-one," he said.
The countess raised her eyebrows.
"The same man does not often make a simpleton of himself in the same fashion, but if you will do it, you will. For the present, if you have any regard for the person who is not your wife, you will let her go home again. I will return and talk over your journey with you."
So saying, the Countess of Lanswell quitted the room, leaving her son overwhelmed with a sense of defeat.