only resentment? have you only disdain? have you only vengeance? have you
pity? or have you the jealous absorbing desire, surviving the affection
from which it sprang, that still the life wrenched from you shall owe,
despite itself, a melancholy allegiance to your own?"

Darrell impatiently waved his hand to forbid further questions; and it
needed all his sense of the service this woman had just rendered him to
repress his haughty displeasure at so close an approach to his torturing
secrets.

Arabella's dark bright eyes rested on his knitted brow, for a moment,
wistfully, musingly. Then she said: "I see! man's inflexible pride--
no pardon there! But own, at least, that you have suffered."

"Suffered!" groaned Darrell involuntarily, and pressing his hand to his
heart.

"You have!--and you own it! Fellow-sufferer, I have no more anger
against you. Neither should pity, but let each respect the other. A few
words more,--this child!"

"Ay--ay--this child! you will be truthful. You will not seek to deceive
me--you know that she--she--claimed by that assassin, reared by his
convict father--she is no daughter of my line!"

"What! would it then be no joy to know that your line did not close with
yourself--that your child might--"

"Cease, madam, cease--it matters not to a man nor to a race when it
perish, so that it perish at last with honour. Who would have either