She seized his arm, and shook it violently; but still he made no response. "You will not speak. Listen, then--listen to me, I say; I'll tell it all now; you'll hear what you never heard before. I did not tell you before, because I pitied you--because I thought you would work for me, and earn money; but you will not promise it. Now, then, listen. You are the very child of money--brought into existence by the influence of money; you would never have been in being had it not been for money. I always told you I was married to your father; I told you a falsehood--he bound me to him by the ties of money only." A violent shudder passed over Andrew's frame at this intelligence, but still he said nothing. "You shall hear it all--I shall tell you particularly the whole story. It was not for nothing you were always afraid of being called a bastard. It's an ugly word, but it belongs to you--ay, ay, ye always trembled at that word, since ye were able to go and play among the children in the street. They called ye that seven years ago--ten years ago, when we came here first, and you used to come crying to me, for you could not bear it, you said. I denied it then--I told you I was married to your father; I told you a lie: I told you that, because I thought you would grow up and work for me, and get me money. You won't do it; you will only write--write all day and all night, too, though I've begged you to quit it. You have me here starving. What signifies the beggarly annuity your father left to me, and you, his child? It's all spent long before it comes, and here we are with nothing, not a crust, in the house, and it's two months till next paying time. "Listen--I'll tell you the whole story of your birth; maybe that will put you from writing for a while, if you have the spirit you used to have when they told you what you were." She shook his arm again, without receiving any answer; his head had fallen on his hands, and he remained fixed in one position. His mother's eyes glared on him with a look in which madness was visible, together with a tigress-like expression of ferocity which rarely appears on the face of a mother, or of any human being, where insanity does not exist. When she spoke, however, her words were collected, and her manner was impressive and even dignified; the look of maniac anger gradually wore away from her face, and in every sentence she uttered there were proofs that something of power had naturally existed in her fallen and clouded mind.