"Was it best to be an impostor?"
"Stop, for G.o.d"s sake, stop!"
"Was it best to be a living lie--and all for the sake of honor? Honor, forsooth! Is it in perjury and robbery that honor lies?"
Paul strode about the room in silence, ashy pale, his face convulsed and ugly. Then his countenance softened, and his voice was broken as he said:
"Hugh, I have done you too much wrong already. Don"t drive me into more; don"t, don"t, I beseech you!"
Hugh laughed lightly--a little trill that echoed in the silent room.
At that heartless sound all the soul in Paul Ritson seemed to freeze. No longer abashed, he lifted his head and put his foot down firmly.
"So be it," he said, and the cloud of anguish fell from his face. "I say it was to save our mother"s good name that I consented to do what I did."
"Consented?" said Hugh, elevating his eyelids.
"You don"t believe me? Very well; let it pa.s.s. You say my atonement is a mockery. Very well, let us say it is so. You say I have kept your place until it is no longer worth keeping. You mean that I have impoverished your estate. That is not true. And you know it is not true. If the land is mortgaged, you yourself have had the money!"
"And who had a better right to it?" said Hugh, and he laughed again.
Paul waved his hand, and gulped down the wrath that was rising.
"You have led me the life of the d.a.m.ned. You know well what bitter cup you have made me drink. If I have stood to the world as my father"s heir, you have eaten up the inheritance If my father"s house was mine, I was no more than a cipher in it. I have had the shadow, and you the substance. You have undermined me inch by inch!"
"And, meantime, I have been as secret as the grave," said Hugh, and once more he laughed lightly.
"G.o.d knows your purpose--you do nothing without one," said Paul. "But it is not I alone that have suffered. Do you think that all this has been going on under our mother"s eyes without her seeing it?"
Hugh Ritson dropped the bantering tone.
Paul"s face grew to an awful solemnity.
"When our father died, it was to be her honor or mine to die with him.
That was the legacy of his sin, Heaven forgive him. I did not hesitate.
But since that hour she has wasted away."
"Is this my fault?" Hugh asked.
"Heaven knows, and Heaven will judge between you," said Paul. "She could bear it no longer." Paul"s voice trembled as he added, "She"s gone!"
There was a moment"s silence. It was as if an angel went by weeping.
"I know it," said Hugh, coldly. "She has taken the veil. I have since seen her."
Paul glanced up.
"She is in the Catholic Convent at Westminster," said Hugh.
Paul"s face quivered.
"Miserable man! but for you, how happy she might have been!"
"You are wrong," said Hugh. "It came of her own misdeed--and yours."
Paul strode toward his brother with uplifted hand.
"Not another word of that," he said, and his voice was low and deep.
"How could she examine her conscience and be happy? She had put an impostor in the place of my father"s heir," said Hugh.
"She had put there your father"s first-born son," said Paul.
"It is false! She had put there her b.a.s.t.a.r.d by another man!"
Silent and awful, Paul stood a moment, with an expression of agony so horrible that for an instant even Hugh Ritson quailed before it.
"Go on," he said, huskily, and crouched down into his seat.
"Your mother was married before," said Hugh, "and her marriage was annulled. It was invalid. A child was born of that union."
Paul lifted his head.
"I won"t believe it!"
"It is true, and you shall believe it!"
Paul"s heart sickened with dread.
"Your father married again, and had a daughter. Your mother married again, and had a son. Your father"s daughter is now living. Shall I tell you who she is? She is your wife--the woman you have married to-day!"
Paul sprung to his feet.
"It is a lie!" he cried.
"See for yourself," said Hugh Ritson; and taking three papers from his pocket, he threw them on to the table. They were the copies of certificates which Bonnithorne had given him.
Paul glanced at them with vacant and wandering eyes, fell back in his chair, dropped his head on to the table, and groaned.
"Oh, G.o.d! can this thing be?"
"When your mother told you that you were an illegitimate son, she omitted to say by what father. That was natural in her, but cruel to you. I knew the truth from the first."
"Then you are a scoundrel confessed!" cried Paul.
Hugh rolled his head slightly, and made a poor pretense to smile.
"I knew how she had pa.s.sed from one man to another; I knew what her honor counted for. And yet I was silent--silent, though by silence I lost my birthright. Say, now, if you will, which of us--you or I--has been the true guardian of our mother"s name?"