"Yes!" said the young man, after a pause. "When you return to
England, you will see--Lady Vincent!" The name was uttered with a
gasp. "Tell her what you have told me--the history of your
acquaintance with my mother; your mutual love; your private
marriage, and the unforeseen misfortune that wrecked your happiness!
Tell her how pure and noble and lovely my young mother was! that her
ladyship may know once for all Nora Worth was not"--Ishmael covered
his face with his hands, and caught his breath, and continued--"not,
as she said, 'the shame of her own sex and the scorn of ours'; that
her son is not 'the child of sin,' nor 'his heritage dishonor!'" And
Ishmael dropped his stately head upon his desk, and sobbed aloud;
sobbed until all his athletic form shook with the storm of his great
agony.

Herman Brudenell gazed at him--appalled. Then, rising, he laid his
hand on the young man's shoulder, saying:

"Ishmael! Ishmael! don't do so! Calm yourself, my son; oh, my dear
son, calm yourself!"

He might as well have spoken to a tempest. Sobs still shook
Ishmael's whole frame.

"Oh, Heaven! oh, Heaven! Would to the Lord I had never been born!"
cried Herman Brudenell, in a voice of such utter woe that Ishmael
raised his head and struggled hard to subdue the storm of passion
that was raging in his bosom. "Or would that I had died the day I
met Nora, and before I had entailed all this anguish on you!"
continued Herman Brudenell, amid groans and sighs.