'They will make her give me up! O my God! how can I bear it? Burnett, I think I shall go mad! Tell me it is not true—that my mother has not lied to me all these years!'
'At least, she has lied for her son's sake.' But he knew how futile were his words, as he saw the bitter contempt in Cyril's honest eyes.
'I will never forgive her! She has ruined my life! she has made me wish that I were dead! I will never, never——'
But Michael interrupted him somewhat sternly:
'Hush! hush! You do not know what you are saying. She is your mother, Blake—nothing can alter that fact.'
'She has deceived us all! No, I will not speak; nothing can make it better or worse. If I lose Audrey, I do not care what becomes of me!'
Michael looked at him pityingly.
'Do you think you ought to marry her, Blake!'
Then Cyril flung away from him with a groan; even in his misery he understood that appeal to his generosity. But he put it from him: he was too much stunned, too dazed altogether, to follow out any train of reasoning. In a vague sort of way he understood two facts: that he and Kester and Mollie were disgraced, and that his mother—the mother whom he adored—had deceived him. Beyond this he could not go. The human mind has limits.
Afterwards, in the chill hour of darkness and solitude, Michael's words would come back to him: 'Do you think you ought to marry her, Blake? Do you think you ought to marry her?'