He threw himself into a seat, and shading his face with his hands, sat silent; but the convulsive heaving of his strong chest, his short, hard breathing, told, more than words could ever do, what he felt at that moment. And still the dusky shadow in the duskier corner sat silently glaring upon him with those red, lurid eyes of flame.
“To tell you this story, to commit my child to your charge, I wished to see you to-night, mother,” he said, at last, without looking up. “She does not dream of its existence; she was told it died the hour of its birth, and was buried while she was still unconscious. In this pocketbook you will find the address of the woman who keeps it; tell her the count—for as such she knows me—sent you for it. Take it with you to Yetholm, mother; try to think it is your son, Reginald, and forget the miserable convict whom you may never see more.”
Still no reply, but oh, the fixed, burning gaze of those spectral eyes of fire!
“Mother, you must leave me now,” he said, lifting his head, and looking sorrowfully in her rigid, haggard face; “for the few hours that are left me, I would like to be alone. It is better for us both that we part now.”
“I will not go!” said a voice so hollow, so unnatural, that it seemed to issue from the jaws of death. “I will not go. I defy heaven and earth, and God himself, to tear me from you now.”
“Mother, it is my wish,” he said, calmly.
“Yours, Reginald?” she cried, in a voice of unutterable reproach. “You wish that I should leave you? For fifteen years I have given you up, and in one short hour you tire of me now. Oh, Reginald, my son! my son!”
No words can describe the piercing anguish, the utter woe, that rived that wild cry up from her tortured heart.
He came over, and laid his small, delicate hand on hers, hard, coarse, and black with sun, wind and toil.
“Listen to me, my mother!” And his low, calm, soothing tones were in strong contrast to her impassioned voice. “I am not tired of you—you wrong me by thinking so; but I have letters to write, and many matters to arrange before to-morrow’s sun rises. I am tired, too, and want to rest; for it is a long time since sleep has visited my eyes, mother.”