"Yes," said Sir Murray, leaning closer and closer towards the young man, whose hot words he did not seem to have heard, so drawn and strange was his aspect--"yes, you will give her up, and I will tell you why: I hate her--yes, bitterly as I hate you; but I have some feeling yet left in me, and I will not see this wrong done. Look here: your path is across the sea; go, and at once. Yours is an honourable calling; try and root out all the base, and be an honourable man. Do not come near Merland again for years; but before you go, write to Isa, and tell her that you give her up, that all is at an end, and that a union is impossible. You have influence with the weak child: tell her, then, as your wish, that she should raise no objection to the match I propose." "Are you mad, sir?" exclaimed Brace. "No, young man," said Sir Murray; "but I have suffered enough to make me so. Do as I tell you, since she never can be yours, for--" He leaned forward, laying one trembling hand upon Brace's shoulder, his face the while drawn and distorted, as he whispered, for a few moments, in the young man's ear. They were few words to which Sir Murray Gernon's lips gave utterance; but they sent a flash of rage through Brace Norton's heart, as, catching the baronet by the throat, he exclaimed: "How dare you utter so base--" He said no more; but his hands dropped to his sides, as he seemed to read in the baronet's livid and distorted features the truth of his utterance. For a few moments the young man stood motionless, a sob of horror and despair rending his breast as he struggled for utterance; the next minute, with the same blind, groping pace--the same aspect of misery seen a quarter of a century before on his father's face--an aspect that might have betokened the judgment for a father's sin descending upon the son--Brace Norton, broken-hearted and half-stunned, hurried away. Book 2, Chapter XIX. AGAINST HOPE.