ARDEN (to his son, who is looking fixedly upon him).
Take off thine eyes from me, boy; they strike me to the earth. Look not so on one whom thou hast called thy father. I know the spirit that is in thee, and, alas! I know that it is none of mine. Thou hast clung round my knees, and the first word of thy lips has been my name; thou hast clung to my side, and appeared to belong to me, but the soul that is in thee claims a far higher descent; thou shouldst have been the son of a nobler father. Yet strike me not to the earth in my wretchedness: I can bear any degradation but this.
YOUNG ARDEN.
Father, father! speak not such words of humiliation: they are in my heart like daggers; they pierce it to the core. If I have looked at you as I ought not to have looked, punish me as you will, but, oh! not in this manner! Give me any other chastisement! You are the father that Heaven has given me, and I will be your son in riches and poverty; in honour and disgrace.
ARDEN.
My noble, my generous boy! Oh, the curse of my unutterable folly! What a proud father I might have been! But now——No, no! change thy name, and let no creature know who it was that gave thee being. Let me die the
