Breakfast was waiting in the pleasant dining-room at Grey's Park, where
Burton Jerrold sat before the fire, with his head bent down and his face
so white and ghastly that his wife, when she came in and saw him, was
moved with a great pity for him, though she wondered much that his
sorrow should be so acute for the father he had never seemed very fond
of in life. Stooping over him she kissed him softly, and said:
"I am sorry you feel so badly, Burton. Your father was old, and quite
ready to die; surely that should comfort you a little."
"Yes, yes, I know; but please don't talk to me now," he replied, with a
gesture of the hand as if to silence her.
He was not sorry for his father's death, but he was willing, nay glad,
that she should think so, for he could not tell her of the load of shame
from which he should never be free.
"What would she say if she knew?" he asked himself, as he remembered all
her pride of blood, and birth, and family. And Grey, his only boy, of
whom he was so proud, and who, he fully expected, would some day fill
one of the highest posts in the land;--what would he say if he knew his
father was the son of a murderer? Burton would not soften the crime even
in thought, though he knew that had his father been arrested at the
time, he could only have been convicted of manslaughter, and possibly
not of that.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204