“Came to see Lord De Courcy? My mother came to see him? Villiers, you do not mean to say that my mother came to beg for my life?”
“My dear fellow, I really do not know. The interview was a private one. All I do know is, that half an hour after my father returned among his guests, looking very much as if he had just seen a ghost. In fact, I never saw him with so startled a look in all my life before. Whether your mother had anything to do with it or not, I really cannot say.”
“If I thought she could stoop to sue for me,” exclaimed the youth, through his clenched teeth; “but no, my mother was too proud to do it. My poor, poor mother! How was she looking, Villiers?”
“Very haggard, very thin, very worn and wild; very wretched, in a word—though that was to be expected.”
“Poor mother!” murmured the youth, with quivering lips, as he bowed his face in his manacled hands, and his manly chest rose and fell with strong emotion.
“My dear fellow,” said Lord Villiers, with tears in his own eyes, “your mother shall never want while I live.”
The prisoner wrung his hand in silence.
“If you like, I will try to discover her, and send her to you before you—”
His voice choked, and he stopped.