"Yes, indeed, sir," he said breathlessly, "I have thirsted for this knowledge so long."
"You have! well, then, listen. I loved your mother with a frantic mad devotion, though I killed her."
"Yes, I killed her; not by a cruel blow, or murderous attack, but quite as surely and as cruelly. I told you I had not your gay and lively disposition. I might have added that I was sensitive and suspicious to an intense degree, and from my first acquaintance with your mother until the day I married her, I was always restless and uneasy, hating and fearing every man who approached her."
He reached a glass of water which stood on the table, and, having drunk some, looked again at his son.
"You see, Caradoc, if I have withheld this information from you long, I am telling you everything now. Just about this time my brother Lewis, who had for some years been settled in Scotland to learn farming, came home to Brynderyn, although I, being the elder son, was the owner of the place. Lewis had a small annuity settled upon him. As I was on the eve of being married, he was much interested in my affairs, and spoke of his admiration of Agnes in such glowing terms, that I felt, and, I fear, showed some resentment. However, as he was well acquainted with my suspicious nature, he was not offended, but laughed me out of my doubts for the time--for the time," he repeated, again fixing his eyes on the spot on the carpet. "Bear in mind, Cardo, through every word of this history, that the suspicion and mistrust of my nature amounted almost to insanity. I see it now, and, thank God, have conquered it in some measure. Well, we were married. Lewis was my groomsman, and Ellen Vaughan was the bridesmaid. It was a very quiet wedding, as Mrs. Vaughan was in very bad health--in fact, she died soon after our marriage, and Agnes seemed to feel the loss of her aunt so acutely that I was jealous and angry, and she saw that I was so, and endeavoured to hide her tears, poor child! poor child! I don't think her uncle ever liked me, or approved of our marriage. Happily he had no control over Agnes's fortune, or I believe she would never have had a penny of it; but I think he might have trusted me there, for I have nursed it--yes and doubled it," he mumbled, as though forgetting he was speaking to anyone but the carpet. "Well, let me see--where was I?"