He started as she spoke to him, and tried to drive away his thoughts, and to speak to her cheerfully; but the same dire suspicion came again and again, and at last, as she urged him to speak--to confide in her--he said, almost in a whisper: "Mother, I was wondering if it were possible that Lady Gernon was murdered!" Mrs Norton shuddered as she recalled the visit of Jane McCray, and the disclosures she had made--every word of which, in spite of the great lapse of time, now seemed to occur to her as plainly as if they had been spoken but a few hours since. "Hush, Brace!" she whispered, her face assuming an aspect of horror. "The idea is too dreadful. Think, too, of what it embraces." "Yes--yes, I know," he exclaimed, impetuously; "but, mother, this must be cleared up. I will have all brought to light. I should have said nothing but for your questions, rather choosing to pursue my own course." "But think, Brace--think of Isa. Suppose such a revelation as you seek to make, how then?--consider how it would affect her. My son, had you not better suffer than bring such a charge against her father?" "Her father--Sir Murray Gernon? I never suspected him of so foul a crime. Mother, you have something you keep back from me. You have suspected him of this, then, perhaps years ago." Mrs Norton said nothing, but her agitated countenance spoke volumes; and rising from his seat, Brace exclaimed, bitterly: "Oh! mother--mother. Is there an evil fate hanging over us? Everything seems to militate against my prospects of happiness. If I had never seen her--if I had never seen her!" he groaned. "Brace, my son, be a man!" exclaimed Mrs Norton, her eyes the while swimming with tears. "You are young yet, and women's hearts are not so frail as novelists would paint them. Wait on and hope. Live in the happy thought that Isa loves you; and, if she be her mother's child, no threat, no persuasion will tempt her to give her hand without her heart. You are young, very young yet, and time may prove all--may lay bare the secrets of the past. I did suspect him. Promise me that you will hold my words secret as the grave, and that you will make no use of them, for Isa's sake, and I will tell you." "Mother," said Brace, bitterly, "I would cut off my right hand sooner than speak a word that would injure any one belonging to her. Say what you will, you cannot alter what I see already. It is all plain enough. My hands are chained, and I must, as you say, live on and hope." "Yes," he said, after Mrs Norton had told him of Jane's visit, "it is possible that all may have been her hallucinations; and it is as possible that--there--no, it is impossible, and I will not harbour the thought. Mother dear, you must teach me your old resignation, that I may wait patiently for the good time when all shall be made plain; for I will wait, you helping, though,"--he said, with a sad and mournful smile--"that time may not be on this side of the grave!"