In the drawing-room Augustine was walking up and down. The fire was burning cheerfully and all the windows were wide open. The room looked its lightest. Augustine's intent eyes were on her as she entered. "You won't find the air too much?" he questioned; his voice trembled.
She murmured that she liked it. But the agitation that she saw controlled in him affected her so that she, too, began to tremble.
She went to her chair at one side of the large round table. "Will you sit there, Augustine," she said.
He sat down, opposite to her, where Sir Hugh had sat the night before. Amabel put her elbows on the table and covered her face with her hands. She could not look at her child; she could not see his pain.
"Augustine," she said, "I am going to tell you a long story; it is about myself, and about you. And you will be brave, for my sake, and try to help me to tell it as quickly as I can."
"Before the story," she said, "I will tell you the central thing, the thing you must be brave to hear.--You are an illegitimate child, Augustine." At that she stopped. She listened and heard nothing. Then came long breaths.
She opened her eyes to see that his head had fallen forward and was buried in his arms. "I can't bear it.--I can't bear it--" came in gasps.
She could say nothing. She had no word of alleviation for his agony. Only she felt it turning like a sword in her heart.
"Say something to me"--Augustine gasped on.--"You did that for him, too.--I am his child.--You are not my mother.--" He could not sob.
Amabel gazed at him. With the unimaginable revelation of his love came the unimaginable turning of the sword; it was this that she must destroy. She commanded herself to inflict, swiftly, the further blow.
He lifted a blind face, hearing her voice. He opened his eyes. They looked at each other.
He gazed at her. He gazed and gazed; and she offered herself to the crucifixion of his transfixing eyes.
The silence grew long. It had done its work. Once more she put her hands before her face. "Listen," she said. "I will tell you."
He did not stir nor move his eyes from her hidden face while she spoke. Swiftly, clearly, monotonously, she told him all. She paused at nothing; she slurred nothing. She read him the story of the stupid sinner from the long closed book of the past. There was no hesitation for a word; no uncertainty for an interpretation. Everything was written clearly and she had only to read it out. And while she spoke, of her girlhood, her marriage, of the man with the unknown name--his father--of her flight with him, her flight from him, here, to this house, Augustine sat motionless. His eyes considered her, fixed in their contemplation.