"But they are not,"--burst from his lips, as the thought on which he so
gloomily brooded sprang to the surface and took him by surprise. He
checked his words by a powerful effort, and the blood forsook his face.
Mary Potter placed her hand on her heart, and seemed to gasp for breath.

Gilbert could not bear to look upon her face. He turned away, placed his
elbow on the table, and leaned his head upon his hand. It never occurred
to him that the unfinished sentence might be otherwise completed. He
knew that his _thought_ was betrayed, and his heart was suddenly filled
with a tumult of shame, pity, and fear.

For a minute there was silence. Only the long pendulum, swinging openly
along the farther wall, ticked at each end of its vibration. Then Mary
Potter drew a deep, weary breath, and spoke. Her voice was hollow and
strange, and each word came as by a separate muscular effort.

"_What_ are they not? What word was on your tongue, Gilbert?"

He could not answer. He could only shake his head, and bring forth a
cowardly, evasive word,--"Nothing."

"But there _is_ something! Oh, I knew it must come some time!" she
cried, rather to herself than to him. "Listen to me, Gilbert! Has any
one dared to say to your face that you are basely born?"

He felt, now, that no further evasion was possible; she had put into
words the terrible question which he could not steel his own heart to
ask. Perhaps it was better so,--better a sharp, intense pain than a dull
perpetual ache. So he answered honestly now, but still kept his head
turned away, as if there might be a kindness in avoiding her gaze.