"I mean what I say. If this story does not lower you in your own eyes, it does in mine. Mother, I have always respected and venerated you till this moment; I can do so no longer. For, mark me, Mother, as the tree is, so is the fruit. How can you expect me, the offspring of such guilt, ever to be a good man?"
"Noah, this is strange language from you! Thank God! you have done nothing at present to cause me shame or reproach."
"You don't know what I have done—what this confession of yours may tempt me to do. God knows, I would rather have been the son of the despised and injured man whose name I bear, than the bastard of the silken reprobate it was your shame to love."
"Oh, Noah! do not speak thus of your own father."
"Curse him! He has already met with his reward. And your sin, Mother, will yet find you out."
I sprang from my chair to leave the room: my mother laid her hand upon my arm: her eyes were brimful of tears.
"Noah, I have not deserved this treatment from you. Whatever my faults may have been, I have been a kind mother to you."
She looked so piteous through her tears that, savage as I felt, my heart reproached me for my harsh, cruel speech. I kissed her pale cheek and sighed, "I forgive you, my poor mother. I would that God could as easily pardon us both; but He is just as well as merciful, and we are great sinners."
She looked enquiringly at me, as I lighted the candle, and strode up to bed.