“There is only one thing,” Rita said. “Nothing in the world shall induce me to call you Isaac. Choose another name, choose any name you please; but Isaac you are not going to be. What could tempt anybody to call a child Isaac? it is dreadful. Godfathers and godmothers ought to be within the reach of the law.”
Then there suddenly seemed to encircle Harry for a moment the atmosphere of a very different place. Grey hills rose around him, the stars took a cold, yet a kinder sparkle; the blue depths of the sea faded away into a misty valley full of vapours.
“When I was a child,” he said, “they called me Harry.” He did not make any further explanations, nor did he feel that any were necessary. For a moment he seemed to see his mother, with her two thin hands clasped together, and to hear her voice calling him: but this was but a phantom, a pale vision, a thing that had passed away for ever. Next moment he was back again in the warm Italian night, with the cicala chirping, and Rita, in a little burst of enthusiasm and pleasure, calling him by that familiar unrelinquished name.
END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.
London: Printed by A. Schulze, 13 Poland Street.