How could she be so cruel to the boy she loved so dearly?
Had she forgotten the tortured heart of Alva, that she could doom her son to a like anguish?
Poor Alva—belle, beauty, and heiress—yet—poor Alva!
Whispering in her empty heart the name of one that died heart-broken for her sake!
Yes, the pride of birth and wealth that had stood between Alva and her happiness now threatened shipwreck also to her brother’s bark of love.
Mrs. Beresford, in a passion of imperious anger, denounced the weakness and folly of her son.
She wrote, bitterly:
“You are a man, and of course I can not forbid you from making the dreadful mésalliance you contemplate, but I can say positively, from your father and myself, that should you persist in your determination to wed this nobody—whose very name you were ashamed to mention—you will cut yourself off from our love and recognition, and also from inheriting one penny of the Beresford millions. As you have nothing to look to but the small legacy you had from your grandfather, perhaps this will bring you to your senses. Doubtless it will cure that scheming adventuress of her fancy for you—some second-rate actress, at the best, I suppose—and you had as well advise her of the change in your prospects should you follow your insane desire to marry such a creature! Our determination on this point is unalterable.”
Every scathing word sunk deep into her son’s heart, and with an inarticulate cry of anger and pain, he tore the offensive letter into ribbons, and cast it beneath his feet, trampling it as if it had been a living serpent.
“I might have known it!” he cried, bitterly. “They did not spare poor Alva, and they will not spare me! But I am not a child as my sister was. I will show them I am made of sterner stuff!”