at the faint hollowness of her voice. "Refuse to wed Constance, and you are with neither house, nor land, nor name!"
"What do you mean, madam?" exclaimed he, in a tone as strange and altered as her own; "am I not the son of the late Mr. Courtenaye—am I not your son?"
Both stood silent, each with a fixed and fascinated gaze on the other: she, with a face worn with a sorrow borne for many years—wan, emaciated, and on whose still fine features suffering wrought like physical pain; he, with all the hope and bloom of youth smitten by a sudden blow—pale as death, and yet with lip and brow curved as if they defied the very agony that wrung the blood from the heart.
"Am I," asked the youth, slowly, but with a voice so changed that it came unfamiliar to the ear even of his mother,—"am I the son of Mr. Courtenaye?"
"You are," replied his mother—and she leaned against the wall for support; while the
