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"It was a confoundedly mean trick!" interrupted Gus, indignantly.

"When I was about nine years old," continued Fred, unmindful of the interruption, "my father started for England, as he said, on business. As he was frequently in the habit of doing so, my mother was not surprised, but her husband had by this time outgrown his love for her, and when, five months after, he returned, it was as the husband of another."

Gus was again about to make a passing remark on Sir William's conduct, but suddenly checking himself, he sank back in silence.

"He told her all," went on Fred, with stern briefness; "his rank, his title; told her he was the husband of another, and that she must no longer consider herself his wife. He said he had come for me, to take me with him to England; that I was his son, and should be educated as became a Stanley. My poor mother shrieked and clung to me, but I was forcibly torn from her arms. They said she fell to the ground like one dead, and from that hour never spoke again. One week after she was laid in her grave!"