“Father! my father! in mercy!”

“Curse you!”

“My God!”

“Ay, curse you. For have you not turned to poison the life whose blessing you were? Have you not dragged down my pride to the depths of shame? Have you not made your father’s name a by-word for the lips of the idle? Then curse you, Mabel Clifdon.”

And Philip Mordaunt paused, exhausted by his own violence; paused, with lips trembling, with the hot blood mounting even to the white hairs brushed from his massive forehead, with his strong form shattered as a reed by the tempest of passion.

“Has not my agony washed out the blot of my transgression? Do I not grovel at your feet, not for the aid I dare not hope, but for the pardon God gives the vilest? Have I not suffered till my life has been to me a torture and a curse, and a long remorse? Is it not enough, my father?”

“May your lips wither when you speak the word, ‘Father.’ Out upon you!”

“Merciful God!”

“Away! away! Out of the home you have forsaken! Away from the threshold you pollute! May the memory of the mother murdered by your ingratitude, of the childless and wifeless old man whose love you have turned to hate, ever cling around your heart; ever poison, like a million of curses, the well-spring of your life! away!”

But she lay there, buried in the long folds of her hair, the raven masses that he had so often smoothed and played with, lay there like a thing without sense or motion, save for the prolonged and bitter sobs that burst forth at intervals, as though the very heart was cleft asunder and breathing out its life.

And before her stood the stern old man, with his arms crossed upon his broad chest, his pale lip compressed, and rigid as though cast in iron, and his eye turned immovably on that prostrate form.

Around him were the evidences of his wealth. The marble fountain that tossed its white spray, and rang forth its silver peel amid the rare and tropical plants, whose perfume stole through the open blinds of the conservatory; the rich drapery of the massive windows; the crimson of the gilded and carved coaches; the deep and glowing dyes of the thick carpets; the soft light of the crystal lamp that swung to and fro from the frescoed ceiling, and the only child of the rich man crouched amid the luxuries that had once been hers, in her mean and faded garb, dusty and toil-worn, unmantled, save for the dark glory of those redundant tresses.

Philip Mordaunt gazed, and for a moment his brow relaxed, and his voice softened as he spoke again,

“Mabel.”

Eagerly she looked up; eagerly upon his stern care-worn face those wild eyes turned, with a half hopeful, half doubting expression, that might have softened a harder heart; but his was steeled against her.

“When you left my home and heart for a villain, I cursed you, Mabel Clifdon. But I will unsay my curse; I will drag you from the shame into which you have fallen. See, my arms are opened to receive you.”

“But Clifdon,” she murmured gaspingly, still crouching to the earth.

“Perdition seize him!”

She shuddered but spoke not.

“See,” murmured the old man, raising her slight form from the ground and speaking kindly, but with a strange gleam in his eye, that mocked the softness of his tones, “See how I woo you back again. I press you to my heart; I smooth back these bright waves that I may kiss your cheek and forehead as I did of old. Come back to the lone old man, who is dying in the midst of his luxury, and all for lack of one dear heart to lean upon. Sweet Mabel! darling! my own, my only child! hark how your mother from her grave implores you. Return, forsake the villain who has wrought us all this anguish.”

“Ah! no! no!”

“Then perish!” he said fiercely, dashing her violently to the earth, “Go perish, fool, with all that you would cling to!”

Again she lay prostrate and half insensible, but with her breath coming in short quick gasps, and the large tears working their way slowly and painfully from beneath the broad white lids that closed above them.

For some minutes Mordaunt paced the room with rapid and impatient steps; now, with a glance turned upon that shaken form, now, lost in thought. Suddenly he paused, and that same cruel smile played within his cold blue eye, though the lines about his mouth softened and his voice was calm.

“You refuse to give me the surest evidence of your repentance,” he said. “Prayers, tears, promises—empty air! I sicken of them. Yet, another proof of your truth remains. You have a child, a son—,” he paused.

With a low cry she sprung to her feet, and stood gazing at him, with lips slightly parted, and head bent forward in silent eagerness.

“I will rescue him from yon den of vice and pollution. I will take him to my bosom as I would have taken the mother who bore him. But that mother he must never know. Swear that his name shall never pass your lips; swear that he shall be to you as the child of a stranger; that your eyes shall never rest again upon his face. Swear this, and even he, even the fruit of your transgression shall be forgiven.” He paused, and bent his gaze upon her, as the torturer may look upon the victim whose agonies his malice would prolong.

But she sprung to his feet, and, kneeling there, pressed her eager and passionate kisses rapidly upon his garment, his hands, nay, even upon the hem of his furred and silken robe.

“Said I in my heart that you were cruel? Take him, my beautiful, my bright boy! Take him now in his purity! Wo! that guilt should reach him even on his mother’s bosom! Take him, and I will bless you though you trample me to the earth! I will pray for you as never lip prayed, though your every word be a scorning and a curse. Speak those dear words again! Say, ere my brain fails, that they deceived me not.”

He stood looking down upon her with a surprised and troubled expression.

“Do you yield him so readily?”

“Ay, and thank Heaven that I may.”

“Remember! never to reclaim him. Never to hear him call you mother; never to look upon his baby face or to feel the clinging of his arms, and the pressure of his lips upon yours.”

“In mercy—in mercy—ah! spare me!”

He was touched, even he, the cruel and unforgiving, by the helpless agony of that clinging form, those faint and gasping words, but he was silent, and an expression of doubt and irresolution crossed his face.

His offer, cold and cruel as it was, had been made in scorn, and he was unprepared for acceptance. At last he spoke.

“Send the boy to me,” he said, pointing at the same time to the door. “Send him, but look that you cross no more his path or mine. Go!” and as he motioned her imperiously away, the suppliant arose and gathering up again her long tresses, and shrouding her face beneath her hood, departed, with the red spot burning on her cheek, and the smile of the martyred within her eye and upon her lip.

“It is Mrs. Clifdon, pretty Mrs. Clifdon,” said one of a group of gentlemen gathered near, as she passed down the marble steps and left forever the door now closed upon her.

“What takes her to Mordaunt’s?” inquired another, staring after her with a rude curiosity, that quickened her steps and made her heart beat with apprehension.

“Don’t you remember? It is an old story. The disinherited child of Philip Mordaunt, who ran off with a circus-rider some four or five years ago. Clifdon, you know, handsome Ned Clifdon.”

“And has never been forgiven?”

“By yon piece of breathing marble? Never. And she was but a giddy spoiled child, too, at the time; only sixteen, more to be pitied than blamed, poor thing.”

On she hurried, with faltering steps; avoiding the bright and crowded thoroughfares, to seek the more gloomy and deserted streets; thus, until she paused before a large and gayly ornamented building and opening a side-door, entered, and closed it behind her. Passing up the dark and winding stair-case with a hasty tread, she paused, breathless, before a small room, and through its half open door stood for a few minutes gazing silently.

It was a strange scene that she looked upon. The apartment, with its dusky walls and discolored floor, the rude form made to serve the purpose of a chair, the rough table, upon which flared the dim and misshapen lamp—all seemed to speak the abode of neglect and poverty. But tossed upon the floor, the table, and upon the form beside the cracked mirror, lay white and crimson plumes, mock jewels, that flashed with a false glitter beneath the lamp-light, gaudy and bespangled dresses, and lastly, the figure of the actor arrayed in his fanciful yet not unbecoming attire.

He was tall, yet somewhat lightly built, and the close jacket of blue and silver, with its fringed and spangled tunic, the buck-skin fitted tightly around his lower limbs, the sandals donned in lieu of the heavy boot, and laced around the slender and well-turned ankle, exhibited to the utmost advantage a wonderful union of strength and beauty. A light-blue cap, with its waving plumes and sparkling ornaments, lay upon the table beside him, but his head was uncovered, and over the hands, upon which his face was bowed, fell the raven and glossy curls, in almost feminine profusion.

“Ned!”

He started to his feet, and clasped in his own the little hand that had fallen so tremulously upon his shoulder.

“Dear Mabel!”

She smiled in his face and strove to speak, but in vain, and bowing her face upon the hand she held, she wept, long and bitterly.

He looked upon her with a changing countenance, now with an expression of strange, half-womanish tenderness within his deep-blue eye, now, with the deadly white of agony settling around his lips, and the sharp glance of fear wandering to the door and out, as though it would penetrate the dark, still, passage, and when he spoke it was in a voice tremulous with emotion.

“Speak Mabel. Did you succeed? Is there hope left? For God’s sake speak!” and clinging to his arm for support, she did speak, briefly, rapidly, as though every word were a pang she sought to spare him.

He listened to the whole in silence, with his eyes fixed upon her colorless face.

“I looked for nothing more,” he said at last. “Hope did not delay me.”

“Delay you, Edward.”

“I mean that I never built upon it,” he said hurriedly, and averting his eyes, “I meant but that.”

She looked upon him with a troubled face, as he paced the floor of the little apartment, and spoke again, but hesitatingly.

“You will give up the boy, Edward?”

“I have no right to give him a prison roof when a better offers,” said Clifdon bitterly. “He has the Mordaunt face, and more of the Mordaunt blood than mine. Ay, send him, he might curse me for the love that would keep him.”

“Hush! hush! dearest: never talk so wildly. I will go to Brendon, I will kneel again and pray for mercy, for delay. I will walk the very streets a beggar till the debt is paid. Only speak not so. Is there not hope?”

He tossed back the bright dark hair as though an insufferable weight were pressing upon his temples, and flinging open a window, leaned out and gasped for breath. When he again drew back his face was calm, but his voice sounded with unnatural hollowness.

“If Mark Brendon sees to-morrow’s light, Mabel, your husband lies in a debtor’s prison, without the means to work for his freedom. And he will be there forever.”

“Not so, Clifdon, I shall be alone—” her voice faltered despite her efforts, “unburthened, and I can work.”

“You,” he said, abruptly pausing before her; and taking in his own her white, small hands, he gazed upon them with a smile of bitter mockery. “You would have starved—you would starve, Mabel, without a friend or a hope in this wide world. You would die unheeded at the threshold of him you have forsaken for—your husband.”

She shuddered; not at his words, but at the strange expression within his eye and upon his lip.

“When I took you from your palace-home, Mabel, it was with the love of a man young in the world, and young in sorrow. Now would I give my right hand to place you there again. To part from you Mabel, never more to look upon your face, or to rest upon your bosom and listen to your sweet voice, when my head is throbbing with the weariness and tumult of yon accursed buffoonery. Will you leave me? I bid you go.”

“Leave you?”

“Hark, Mabel, hark! Suppose the hand you clasp and wet with your tears, were double dyed in guilt; that it were red even with the blood of murder, (ay, shudder and grow pale and blench away!) If I told you this, that I was a demon walking hand in hand through earth with an angel, that I had sinned too deeply even to meet your eye or to hear your voice, would I drive you from me?”

“If I could believe.”

“You would cling to me in sorrow, but not in guilt, Mabel,” he said, regarding her with a look of jealous suspicion.

“Through the darkest deeps of shame and misery. I will forsake thee only with death! Yet, oh! my husband, wherefore torture me thus?”

“Because I would drive you from me,” he said, with violence the more exaggerated because unreal; “Go, woman, I love you not! Go! back to your home! Away from one you burthen and weary!”

She looked at him for an instant doubtingly, but his brows were gathered into a heavy frown, and his eyes from beneath their long lashes flashed fire upon her. With a low moan she sunk fainting at his feet.

“I have done my duty,” he murmured, as he raised her tenderly in his arms and kissed, again and again, her damp cheek and forehead, “she would not leave me—God is my witness there. Dear Mabel! my own sweet wife! hark how I unsay those cruel words.”

She replied not, but raised her eyes to his, and in that one look of unutterable affection he read how futile had been his effort, how mighty a thing is love.

A bell rang below, and at the same moment a footstep was heard in the passage, and a child sprung into the room, and to Mabel’s side.

“I must go,” said Clifdon, starting. “Lock the door, and remain here until I return to take you home. Phil, stay with your mother.”

“Let me go,” said the boy, pressing to his side, and playing with the silver fringe of his tunic. “Let me see you ride White Fleeta once more around the ring—only once. Ah, mamma, it is so beautiful!”

“No, no!” said Clifdon, impatiently. “It is no place for you. Come, come, I must go.”

“Bring me down, then, where Mark is on the swing,” persisted the little one, coaxingly. “Let me see Mark swing.”

A dark cloud swept over his father’s face, and extricating his dress with a smothered imprecation, he turned toward the door.

“Lend me your knife, then,” said Philip, springing forward and again grasping his dress; and throwing it hastily to the petitioner, Clifdon hurried down stairs.

He flung open the door of an apartment in the lower passage, and striding through without a glance at the gayly-bedizened throng there assembled, led forward a powerful white mare that stood saddled and bridled, and appeared to busy himself with its glittering trappings.

“How now, Captain Ned, gallant Captain Ned,” said one, advancing from the group with a jeering smile and a grotesque bow. “I looked to White Fleeta myself, and you are pulling to pieces my work without mercy.”

“Her throat-latch is too tight,” said Clifdon, bending over the animal till the long plumes of his cap swept its glossy mane.

But the clown, for such was the post the first speaker held in the company, pressed yet closer, and attempted to touch the small ears that were now laid angrily back.

“You fret her,” said Clifdon, impatiently; “stand aside.”

The man winced in affected terror, and springing back, crouched, panting and fanning himself with his large hat, twisting his features meanwhile into a grimace that elicited shouts of laughter from his companions.

Placed above the mass of his profession by education, and somewhat by birth, Clifdon was, of course, to many, an object of jealousy; and although none dared to come forward singly, all willingly encouraged and sided with their comrade.

“We look sad to-night, gallant Captain Ned,” he said, advancing again with an affected shuffle and a sidelong movement. “Are we in love, or in debt; or has the pretty bird that we lock up so carefully flown off to a golden cage?”

“Peace,” said Clifdon, turning toward his tormentor with so black a frown that he started and changed countenance. “Peace, fool!”

“You have given me my title,” said the other, with a mock bow and a smile where rage and malice badly counterfeited mirth. “I am not ashamed of my profession, handsome Captain Ned.”

“Come, come,” said a third, advancing slowly, “stand back Tom,” to the clown, “the captain and I have some business matters to arrange.”

“Ay, ay,” said the person addressed, with a significant wink; and crossing the room by a succession of somersets, he disappeared through the opposite door.

The last comer was a short and slightly-built man, clad from head to foot in buck-skin, save for the scarlet and gold garment that girded around his waist, was fastened at each knee by a garter and clasp of some brilliant material. His hair, instead of flowing in the long, loose curls affected by most of his companions, had been shorn close to the head, leaving exposed the low and sensual formation of the forehead, and the large ears, that, flapping and shapeless, hung forward like those of an animal. The flat nose, the high cheek-bones; the thick and habitually up-curved lips, the small, gray eye lurking beneath its over-hanging brow, and, above all, the extraordinary length of the arms, gave to this remarkable person more the appearance of a species of the monkey tribe than of a human being.

“The money, Ned; I swear I will wait no longer.”

“To-morrow,” said Clifdon, hoarsely, and bending as if to tighten the saddle-girth.

“On your word?” repeated Brendon, for it was he, with a glance of incredulity.

“Ay—begone!”

The other turned upon his heel with a prolonged whistle, and Clifdon, vaulting into the saddle, awaited the signal for his appearance.

——