“‘Why?’ he repeated, and his voice was like a savage growl. ‘Why am I here? I am here for my wife and my son, and I intend to have them, too. I’d like to see the law that can keep them from me, so lead the way quickly, for I shall be off in the next train.’
“‘Never with Anna and the baby. Never, while I have the power to prevent it, as I have,’ Madame Verwest replied, and then all the pent-up fury of the terrible man burst out, and there were flecks of white foam about his lips as he cursed the woman who boldly kept him at bay, with the most horrible of curses, calling her at last by the vilest name a woman can be called, and asking for her wedding ring and the certificate of her marriage.
‘Ernest Haverleigh, hush; nor dare speak to me, your mother, like that again.’
“The voice which said these words was very steady and low, but Haverleigh heard it distinctly, and grasping the back of the chair near which he was standing, repeated: ‘My mother; you, who were only my nurse. You call yourself my mother!’
“‘Yes, and before Heaven I am your mother; listen while I tell you what you should have known before, but for a promise to the dead.’
“He was still staring at her, with that same corpse-like pallor on his face, and the look of a wild beast in his eyes, but he did not speak, for some thing in the woman before him kept him silent while she went on:
“‘I am your mother, and I thought I was your father’s wife, until after you were born, when there came a day of horrid awakening, and I found I was betrayed by the man I loved, and for whom I had left my home, for I was young and innocent once, and pretty, too, they said; but I was poor and hated poverty, and when this rich man came with honeyed words and fair promises, I believed and trusted him to my ruin, and went with him over the sea—for I am American born, and not English, as you suppose. We staid in lodgings in London till you were born, and by that time a face fairer than mine had come between me and your father, a woman he meant to marry, and so he told me the truth of his villainy, and when I found I was not a wife, I think I went mad for a time, and when I came to myself I was in poorer lodgings in an obscure part of London, where I passed for Mr. Haverleigh’s housekeeper, who had served him so faithfully that he would not cast me off in my trouble. That was the lie he told, and they believed him and were kind to me for the sake of the money he paid them, You were at Grasmere then with your father, whom in spite of everything I loved, and to whom I went, begging him to let me have the care of my child if nothing more. To this he consented, the more readily because he was about to marry my rival, and you might be in the way. He loved you, I do believe, and he trusted me, but made me swear not to divulge my real relation to you. I was your nurse, your foster-mother, nothing more. There might be no children of the marriage, he said, and if so, he should make you his heir, and did not wish you to know the stain upon your birth. There were no children, and as if to punish him for his sin to me, his wife died within the year, and he was left alone and made you his heir, so that when he died all he had was left to you, except a thousand pounds given to me, whom he designated as the foster-mother of his child.
“‘You, as you grew up, believed the woman who died at Grasmere was your mother, and that I was only your nurse; but that was false; I was your mother, else I had never followed your fortunes as I have, and clung to you through all as only a mother can cling to the son whose wickedness she knows, and whom she cannot forsake. You thought me in your power, because you fancied I had been indiscreet in my youth, and that your threats to expose me kept me quiet to do your bidding. There you were mistaken. It was the mother loving you through everything which made me the same as a prisoner at Chateau d’Or, where I was really happier than when following you about. Because it suited you I consented to be Madame Verwest, a Frenchwoman, and for you I have lived a life of deceit, which, thank Heaven, is over now. I meant to release Anna myself sometime, on the plea of your insanity, if by no other, for there is madness in your father’s family, and you are mad at times. But others planned the escape, and I gladly followed to America, my native land, and to Millfield, my old home, for I am Milly Gardner, step-sister to Anna’s father, and the one you told me went to the bad, and was the only blot on the family.’
“Up to this time there had been a listener to Madame Verwest’s story—Mrs. Strong, who, terrified at the appearance of Haverleigh, had fled to the adjoining room, where she sank into a chair faint and helpless, and thus heard all that was said by Madame Verwest. At the mention of Milly Gardner, however, she sprang to her feet and ran to the woman’s side, exclaiming:
“Oh, Milly, Milly! I have heard so much of you from my husband, and from him learned to love you even while believing the story I know now to be false. It is all so strange that you should be here when we thought you dead years ago. And you are his mother,” she continued, pointing to Haverleigh. ‘Send him away, if you have any power over him; he must not see my child.’