"And, Ishmael, I loved your mother!"

"Oh, Heaven!" breathed the young man, in sickening, deadly
apprehension; for well he remembered that this Mr. Herman Brudenell
was the husband of the Countess of Hurstmonceux at the very time of
which he now spoke.

"Ishmael, do not look so cruelly distressed. I loved her, she loved
me in return, she crowned my days with joy, and--"

A gasping sound of suddenly suspended breath from Ishmael.

"I made her my wife," continued Herman Brudenell, in a grave and
earnest voice.

"It was you then!" cried Ishmael, shaking with agitation.

"It was I!"

Silence like a pall fell between them.

"Oh, Ishmael! my son! my son! speak to me! give me your hand!"
groaned Herman Brudenell.

"She was your wife! Yet she died of want, exposure, and grief!" said
Nora's son, standing pale and stony before him.

"And I--live with a breaking heart! a harder fate, Ishmael. Since
her death, I have been a wifeless, childless, homeless wanderer over
the wide world! Oh, Ishmael! my son! my son! give me your hand!"