"Hold! hold! again I say," ejaculated Lady Hatfield, clasping her hands in despair. "That Thomas Rainford whom you would make the victim of your vengeance, is——"
"Is what?" demanded the Earl hastily.
"Is—is——"
"Who? in the name of heaven!"
"Your Brother!" was the hysterical reply.
CHAPTER XLVII.
FARTHER EXPLANATIONS.
"My brother!" repeated the Earl of Ellingham, with a wild glance and a sudden start, indicative of the most painful surprise. "My brother! Georgiana!—oh! no—impossible! 'Tis true that my father——but no——that child died——"
"I can give you no particulars—offer you no evidence in this most strange and mysterious matter," said Lady Hatfield, endeavouring to subdue the excitement produced in her much-agitated mind by the preceding scene. "All that I know is—all that he told me was that secret which I have now revealed to you! Thus, Arthur, you perceive that—independent of the other reason which would prevent me from becoming yours, and you from receiving me as your wife——"
"But wherefore did you not mention this at first—at the commencement of our conversation this morning?" demanded the nobleman, utterly bewildered by the revelation that had been made to him, and scarcely knowing whether to regard it as a substantial fact or a miserable fiction.
"Because Rainford himself appeared to tell it to me as a profound secret," observed Georgiana. "Not that he desired me to consider it as such: but his manner—and then the nature of the revelation itself, which could not be gratifying to your feelings—oh! I scarcely know what I am saying, Arthur—but I would have spared your feelings, had you not compelled me to make that revelation, to prevent the mad—the insane designs of vengeance which you had formed——"