Thus the gloomy man had crossed the threshold of his father's house, and
silently entered the apartments still set apart for him. He had arrived
about an hour before Leonard; and as he stood by the hearth, with his
arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fixed lead-like on the ground,
his mother came in to welcome and embrace him. He checked her eager
inquiries after Violante, he recoiled from the touch of her hand.

"Hold, madam," said he, startling her ear with the cold austerity of his
tone. "I cannot heed your questions,--I am filled with the question I
must put to yourself. You opposed my boyish love for Leonora Avenel.
I do not blame you,--all mothers of equal rank would have done the same.
Yet, had you not frustrated all frank intercourse with her, I might have
taken refusal from her own lips,--survived that grief, and now been a
happy man. Years since then have rolled away,--rolled over her quiet
slumbers, and my restless waking life. All this time were you aware that
Audley Egerton had been the lover of Leonora Avenel?"

"Harley, Harley! do not speak to me in that cruel voice, do not look at
me with those hard eyes!"

"You knew it, then,--you, my mother!" continued Harley, unmoved by her
rebuke; "and why did you never say, 'Son, you are wasting the bloom and
uses of your life in sorrowful fidelity to a lie! You are lavishing
trust and friendship on a perfidious hypocrite.'"

"How could I speak to you thus; how could I dare to do so, seeing you
still so cherished the memory of that unhappy girl, still believed that
she had returned your affection? Had I said to you what I knew (but not
till after her death), as to her relations with Audley Egerton--"