“Oh, I'm not afraid!” he cried savagely. “Can you imagine anything more diabolical than the scheme he has had in mind all these years? To pay back my mother--whom he loved and still loves--yes, by Heaven, he still loves her--he works to this beastly end! He made her suffer the agonies of the damned up to the day of her death by refusing her the right to have the child that he swears is no child of his. Oh, you don't know the story--you don't know the kind of man you have for a husband--you don't------” “Yes, yes; I do know!” she cried violently, beating her breast with clenched hands. “I _do_ know! I know that he still loves the poor girl who went out of this house with his curses ringing in her ears a score of years ago, and who died still hearing them. And I had almost come to the point of pitying him--I was failing--I was weakening. He is a wonderful man. I--I was losing myself. But that is all over. Three months ago I could have left him without a pang--yesterday I was afraid that it would never be possible. To-day he makes it easy for me. He has hurt you beyond all reason, not because he hates you, but because he loved your mother.” “But you do love him!” cried Frederic in stark wonder. “You don't care the snap of your fingers for me. What is all this you are saying, Yvonne? You must be mad. Think! Think what you are saying.” “I have thought--I am always thinking. I know my own mind well enough. It is settled: I am going away, and I am going with you.” “You can't be in earnest!” “I am desperately in earnest. You owe nothing to him now. He says you are not his son. You owe nothing but hatred to him, and you should pay. You owe vengeance for your mother's sake--for the sake of her whose face you have come to love, who loved you to the day she died, I am sure. He will proclaim to the world that you are not his son, he will brand you with the mark of shame, he will drive you out of New York. You are the son of a music-master, he shouts from the housetops! Your mother was a vile woman, he shouts from the housetops! You cannot remain here. You _must_ go. You must take me with you. Ah, you are thinking of Lydia! Well, are you thinking of dragging her through the mire that he will create? Are you willing to give her the name he declares is not yours to give? Are you a craven, whipped coward who will not strike back when the chance is offered to give a blow that will------” “I cannot listen to you, Yvonne!” cried Frederic, aghast. His heart was pounding so fiercely that the blood surged to his head in great waves, almost stunning him with its velocity. “We go to-morrow!” she cried out in an ecstasy of triumph. She was convinced that he would go! “La Provence!” “Good Heaven!” he gasped, dropping suddenly into a chair and burying his face in his shaking hands. “What will this mean to Lydia--what will she do--what will become of her?”