CHAPTER XLI
“WHERE IS MY BROTHER?”
Isabel and her mother now forgot some of their own fear when they saw Lady Randal so unnerved.
It had been a matter of great mystery to them how their prisoner escaped, and it seemed that it was about to be explained; and Mrs. Coolidge, with her ready wit, began to think that the skeleton of the house was to be revealed also.
“This person,” Adrian resumed, “proved to be a young man by the name of——”
“Oh, spare me!—in mercy, spare me, Adrian!” cried the guilty woman, springing toward him, with outstretched hands and agonizing face.
“Spare you? Have you spared your own flesh and blood?” demanded Adrian, sternly. “Have you ever felt an atom of mercy for your own son, whom, for over twenty years, you have doomed to almost solitary confinement, away from the sunlight and fresh air, depriving him of the simplest rights which a human being craves—liberty and his own place in the world? Oh, heartless mother that you are! it is but just and right that the world should know that Herbert Randal, your third son, because of a deformity with which God saw fit to afflict him, has been loathed by the woman who bore him, and that, to further the interests of your favorite child, you have kept him secreted for years, hoping that, in his feeble state, every year would be his last, and your guilty course never become known. But God is merciful, and the time for restitution is at hand; and, be it known to you, it was through him Miss Douglas was released from her confinement.”
He then went on and explained at length how it had transpired; how he had found Brownie, cold and trembling, and exhausted from excitement and terror, in the grove in the rear of the Hall, and had persuaded her to give him the right to protect her at once.
He explained their journey to London, in company with Nurse Clum and Milly, and concluded by saying:
“We intended returning hither immediately, but unforeseen circumstances prevented; and when at length I was enabled to come, you were gone to the Continent. We should not have intruded upon you to-day had we not deemed it best to secure this casket before Sir Charles and his wife should leave again.”
When the young man concluded there was an awkward silence for a few moments, except for Mrs. Coolidge’s whispering to Isabel, and then, lifting her haggard face, Lady Randal asked: