“Stay, ah, stay, and redeem the past! You can, you can outlive it.”
Always the same: live it down!
“It is no use,” he answered; “I must return.”
Then in a few words he thanked them for all, and bade them good-bye. He did not offer his hand, nor did they. But at the door he heard Lady Belward say in a pleading voice:
“Gaston!”
He returned. She held out her hand.
“You must not do as your father did,” she said. “Give the woman up, and come back to us. Am I nothing to you—nothing?”
“Is there no other way?” he asked, gravely, sorrowfully.
She did not reply. He turned to his grandfather. “There is no other way,” said the old man, sternly. Then in a voice almost shrill with pain and indignation, he cried out as he had never done in his life: “Nothing, nothing, nothing but disgrace! My God in heaven! a lion-tamer—a gipsy! An honourable name dragged through the mire! Go back,” he said grandly; “go back to the woman and her lions—savages, savages, savages!”
“Savages after the manner of our forefathers,” Gaston answered quietly. “The first Gaston showed us the way. His wife was a strolling player’s daughter. Good-bye, sir.”