LITMIR.BIZ

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the one sole tie that attaches me to life. Without it, the apathy that I feel stealing over me would be complete, and my existence become a mournful dream. In a word, Upton, all is passionless within me, save one sentiment; and I drag on life merely for a 'Vendetta.'”

      Upton shook his head mournfully, as the other paused here, and said—

      “This is disease, Glencore!”

      “Be it so; the malady is beyond cure,” said he, sternly.

      “Trust me it is not so,” said Upton, gently; “you listened to my persuasions on a more—”

      “Ay, that I did!” cried Glencore, interrupting; “and have I ever ceased to rue the day I did so? But for your arguments, and I had not lived this life of bitter, self-reproaching misery; but for you, and my vengeance had been sated ere this!”

      “Remember, Glencore,” said the other, “that you had obtained all the world has decreed as satisfaction. He met you and received your fire; you shot him through the chest—not mortally, it is true, but to carry to his grave a painful, lingering disease. To have insisted on his again meeting you would have been little less than murder. No man could have stood your friend in such a quarrel. I told you so then, I repeat it now, he could not fire at you; what, then, was it possible for you to do?”

      “Shoot him—shoot him like a dog!” cried Glencore, while his eyes gleamed like the glittering eyes of an enraged beast. “You talk of his lingering life of pain: think of mine; have some sympathy for what I suffer! Would all the agony of his whole existence equal one hour of the torment he has bequeathed to me, its shame and ignominy?”

      “These are things which passion can never treat of, my dear Glencore.”

      “Passion alone can feel them,” said the other, sternly. “Keep subtleties for those who use like weapons. As for me, no casuistry is needed to tell me I am dishonored, and just as little to tell me I must be avenged! If you think differently, it were better not to discuss this question further between us; but I did think I could have reckoned upon you, for I felt you had barred my first chance of a vengeance.”

      “Now, then, for your plan, Glencore,” said Upton, who, with all the dexterity of his calling, preferred opening a new channel in the discussion, to aggravating difficulties by a further opposition.

      “I must rid myself of her! There's my plan!” cried Glencore, savagely. “You have it all in that resolution. Of no avail is it that I have separated my fortune from hers, so long as she bears my name, and renders it infamous in every city of Europe. Is it to you, who live in the world—who mix with men of every country—that I need tell this? If a man cannot throw off such a shame, he must sink under it.”

      “But you told me you had an unconquerable aversion to the notion of seeking a divorce.”

      “So I had; so I have! The indelicate, the ignominious course of a trial at law, with all its shocking exposure, would be worse than a thousand deaths! To survive the suffering of all the licensed ribaldry of some gowned coward aspersing one's honor, calumniating, inventing, and, when invention failed, suggesting motives, the very thought of which in secret had driven a man to madness! To endure this—to read it—to know it went published over the wide globe, till one's shame became the gossip of millions—and then—with a verdict extorted from pity, damages awarded to repair a broken heart and a sullied name—to carry this disgrace before one's equals, to be again discussed, sifted, and cavilled at! No, Upton; this poor shattered brain would give way under such a trial; to compass it in mere fancy is already nigh to madness! It must be by other means than these that I attain my object!”

      The terrible energy with which he spoke actually frightened Upton, who fancied that his reason had already begun to show signs of decline.

      “The world has decreed,” resumed Glencore, “that in these conflicts all the shame shall be the husband's; but it shall not be so here! She shall have her share, ay, and, by Heaven, not the smaller share either!”

      “Why, what would you do?” asked Upton, eagerly.

      “Deny my marriage; call her my mistress!” cried Glencore, in a voice shaken with passion and excitement.

      “But your boy—your son, Glencore!”

      “He shall be a bastard! You may hold up your hands in horror, and look with all your best got-up disgust at such a scheme; but if you wish to see me swear to accomplish it, I'll do so now before you, ay, on my knees before you! When we eloped from her father's house at Castellamare, we were married by a priest at Capri; of the marriage no trace exists. The more legal ceremony was performed before you, as Chargé d'Affaires at Naples—of that I have the registry here; nor, except my courier, Sanson, is there a living witness. If you determine to assert it, you will do so without a fragment of proof, since every document that could substantiate it is in my keeping. You shall see them for yourself. She is, therefore, in my power; and will any man dare to tell me how I should temper that power?”

      “But your boy, Glencore, your boy!”

      “Is my boy's station in the world a prouder one by being the son of the notorious Lady Glencore, or as the offspring of a nameless mistress? What avail to him that he should have a title stained by her shame? Where is he to go? In what land is he to live, where her infamy has not reached? Is it not a thousand times better that he enter life ignoble and unknown—to start in the world's race with what he may of strength and power—than drag on an unhonored existence, shunned by his equals, and only welcome where it is disgrace to find companionship?”

      “But you surely have never contemplated all the consequences of this rash resolve. It is the extinction of an ancient title, the alienation of a great estate, when once you have declared your boy illegitimate.”

      “He is a beggar: I know it; the penalty he must pay is a heavy one. But think of her, Upton—think of the haughty Viscountess, revelling in splendor, and, even in all her shame, the flattered, welcomed guest of that rotten, corrupt society she lives in. Imagine her in all the pride of wealth and beauty, sought after, adulated, worshipped as she is, suddenly struck down by the brand of this disgrace, and left upon the world without fortune, without rank, without even a name. To be shunned like a leper by the very meanest of those it had once been an honor when she recognized them. Picture to yourself this woman, degraded to the position of all that is most vile and contemptible. She, that scarcely condescended to acknowledge as her equals the best-born and the highest, sunk down to the hopeless infamy of a mistress. They tell me she laughed on the day I fainted at seeing her entering the San Carlos at Naples—laughed as they carried me down the steps into the fresh air! Will she laugh now, think you? Shall I be called 'Le Pauvre Sire' when she hears this? Was there ever a vengeance more terrible, more complete?”

      “Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve others in the penalty of her fault. Laying aside every higher motive, you can have no more right to deny your boy's claim to his rank and fortune than I or any one else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished; by his birth he became the heir to your title and estates.”

      “He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard: who shall deny it? You may,” added he, after a second's pause; “but where's your proof? Is not every probability as much against you as all documentary evidence, since none will ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, and make over my fortune to Heaven knows what remote relation?”

      “And do you expect me to become a party to this crime?” asked Upton, gravely.

      “You balked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I think you owe me a reparation!”

      “Glencore,” said Upton, solemnly, “we are both of us men of the world—men who have seen life in all its varied aspects sufficiently to know the hollowness of more than half the pretension men trade upon as principle; we have witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives amongst the highest in station; and it is not for either of us to affect any overstrained estimate of men's honor and good faith; but I say to you, in all sincerity,

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