To-morrow your father, your sisters, all the world, shall know the story you have told me!" "By Heaven, sir, you will not do this!" burst out the young man.
"Silence, bastard!" cried Sir Richard.

"Ay, bite your lips; the word is of your precious mother's making!" Lady Devine slipped through her son's arms and fell on her knees at her husband's feet.
"Do not do this, Richard.

I have been faithful to you for two-and-twenty years.

I have borne all the slights and insults you have heaped upon me.
The shameful secret of my early love broke from me when in your rage, you threatened him.

Let me go away; kill me; but do not shame me." Sir Richard, who had turned to walk away, stopped suddenly, and his great white eyebrows came together in his red face with a savage scowl.
He laughed, and in that laugh his fury seemed to congeal into a cold and cruel hate.
"You would preserve your good name then.