"It matters not! better so than to live on here. Mother, you would have had no power to detain me in this place but for that rash promise; not even your wishes should have kept me. I beseech you release me from it."
"Never!"
He almost writhed as she spoke, yet he went on—
"Do not keep me because you fancy I should starve; no man does who has energy and perseverance. I have a head and hands to labor with, and how far sweeter were the worst of toil than the bitter bread of charity."
"But do you know," said Lady Randolph almost fiercely, "that I could not give you the means of buying that bread one day, I am so utterly in Sir Michael's power. He succeeded in laying hold of me because I was poverty-stricken beyond what flesh and blood could bear, and now by the same means he binds me down; he never has relaxed his hold; every thing is his; I could not command a shilling. These very baubles with which he loads me are not my own." And she tore the bracelets from her arms and flung them down. "He calls them family jewels on purpose to keep me to the veriest trifle in his power.
"Mother, mother," exclaimed Hubert, "do you think, though he placed the wealth of millions in your hands, that I would not rather perish than touch it; it is too much already that I have been so long indebted to him for the roof that shelters me; but I do not fear that I could gain enough for my own living, if only you will let me go from this Egyptian bondage."
"Hubert, what is it that has excited you in this manner? I never saw you so unlike yourself; you are usually so calm and so enduring. Was it your unfortunate meeting with Sir Michael last night? Was he more than usually insulting?"
"No, it was not that," said Hubert gently. "I am so used to his bitter words that I could not feel more pained than I have ever been; but it matters not that you should be wearied with the detail of all the thoughts that have made me at this time so desirous to leave Randolph Abbey; dear mother, let it suffice you that I do implore you to release me from my promise."
"Hubert, I tell you no a thousand times. I will not see you starved to death for any Quixotic fancy; and, besides, do you think any power on this earth would induce me to gratify my worst enemy, my life-long enemy, whom chiefly I hate because he has the power to call me wife—that dear name I so loved to hear from the beloved lips that are choked up with dust? Do you think I would gratify him by giving him that which he has labored for, by the persecution of my own dearest husband, even to the death, and of myself to worse than death, a life with him? Do you know that the one thing he has always desired has been to obtain possession of me without having you for ever before his eyes as the living monument of that buried love which was his torturer, and to which I am faithful still? And do you think that to brighten even your life, much less to peril it, I would grant him this his heart's desire, and put it out of my power to show him, in every caress I lavish upon you, my poor deformed son, how I adored your father?"
Hubert let her hand fall, and his features assumed an expression of severity.