"He was penniless, Charles," my mother sobbed; "penniless. He had nothing."
"Penniless! Penniless! Nay. Nay. His brother was here in London at the time and I bade him let Gerald have all necessaries in reason, and I dispatched to Mr. Considine a hundred guineas for his funeral by a sure hand. I could not let the heir to my title----"
"What!" rang out my mother's voice clear and distinct, while I stared at the Marquis as though doubting whether he were bereft of his senses or I of my hearing. "What, you sent money by and to them for him? Oh! Charles, never did he receive one farthing of it."
"So I have cause to fear. And I know not what is to be done with thy brother-in-law. He seems to be a rogue of the worst degree."
But now she fixed her eyes upon him and exclaimed:
"You say so, knowing only the little that you do know, that he and his base servant, Considine--Considine," she, repeated, "Considine, the traducer of my fame whom yet, if God spares me, I will have a heavy reckoning with; you know only that they have conspired to defraud my child of his rights, nay, more, of his honest name. That they have stolen the money you sent to succour my wretched husband in his last days and to bury him as he should be buried according to his rank and fashion when he was dead. That you know, Charles, Marquis of Amesbury, kinsman of this my child, but you do not know all. Will you hear their further villainies, will you know all that they have attempted on him; will you do this, you who are powerful and great, and then will you stretch forth your right hand and crush, as you can crush, these wretches to the earth while, at the same time, you also stretch forth that hand to shelter and protect this innocent child, your heir?"
She had spoken as one inspired by her wrongs; her eyes had flashed and her frame had quivered as might have quivered that of a pythoness as she denounced some creature who had outraged her gods, but the effort had been too much for her weak frame--she could sustain it no further, and, sinking back into her chair, she was but able to gasp out in conclusion, "For his sake, Charles, for the sake of an innocent child. For his sake."
Upon which the Marquis, after trying to calm her, said gently:
"If there are other villainies to hear, I will hear them, yet it seems impossible that more can remain behind. And, Louise," continued the old man, touching her arm very gently, "dry your tears. I cannot bear to see you shed them. Nor have you need. The boy shall be righted. I promise you."
"Tell him all, Gerald; tell him all," my mother sobbed. "Oh! it would be enough to melt a heart of stone, let alone one so kind as his."