For some minutes Mordaunt paced the room with rapid and impatient steps; now, with a glance turned upon that shaken form, now, lost in thought. Suddenly he paused, and that same cruel smile played within his cold blue eye, though the lines about his mouth softened and his voice was calm. “You refuse to give me the surest evidence of your repentance,” he said. “Prayers, tears, promises—empty air! I sicken of them. Yet, another proof of your truth remains. You have a child, a son—,” he paused. With a low cry she sprung to her feet, and stood gazing at him, with lips slightly parted, and head bent forward in silent eagerness. “I will rescue him from yon den of vice and pollution. I will take him to my bosom as I would have taken the mother who bore him. But that mother he must never know. Swear that his name shall never pass your lips; swear that he shall be to you as the child of a stranger; that your eyes shall never rest again upon his face. Swear this, and even he, even the fruit of your transgression shall be forgiven.” He paused, and bent his gaze upon her, as the torturer may look upon the victim whose agonies his malice would prolong. But she sprung to his feet, and, kneeling there, pressed her eager and passionate kisses rapidly upon his garment, his hands, nay, even upon the hem of his furred and silken robe. “Said I in my heart that you were cruel? Take him, my beautiful, my bright boy! Take him now in his purity! Wo! that guilt should reach him even on his mother’s bosom! Take him, and I will bless you though you trample me to the earth! I will pray for you as never lip prayed, though your every word be a scorning and a curse. Speak those dear words again! Say, ere my brain fails, that they deceived me not.” He stood looking down upon her with a surprised and troubled expression. “Do you yield him so readily?” “Ay, and thank Heaven that I may.” “Remember! never to reclaim him. Never to hear him call you mother; never to look upon his baby face or to feel the clinging of his arms, and the pressure of his lips upon yours.” “In mercy—in mercy—ah! spare me!” He was touched, even he, the cruel and unforgiving, by the helpless agony of that clinging form, those faint and gasping words, but he was silent, and an expression of doubt and irresolution crossed his face. His offer, cold and cruel as it was, had been made in scorn, and he was unprepared for acceptance. At last he spoke. “Send the boy to me,” he said, pointing at the same time to the door. “Send him, but look that you cross no more his path or mine. Go!” and as he motioned her imperiously away, the suppliant arose and gathering up again her long tresses, and shrouding her face beneath her hood, departed, with the red spot burning on her cheek, and the smile of the martyred within her eye and upon her lip.