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very comfortable; and we can make the journey in two days, and lay by during the heat of both days. I think the trip will be pleasant. We can reach Brudenell Hall on Friday night, and have a good rest before Sunday, when we can go to the old country church, where you will be likely to meet the faces of some of your old friends. I think we shall be very comfortable, keeping bachelor-hall together at Brudenell Hall this summer, Mr. Worth," said Herman Brudenell, who longed more than tongue could tell to have Nora's son at home with him, though it might be only for a short time.
"I feel your kindness very much indeed, Mr. Brudenell; and I should be very, very happy to accept your hospitable invitation; but--I was about to say, it really is quite impossible in the existing state of my business for me to go anywhere at present," said Ishmael courteously.
"Indeed? I am very sorry for that. But the reasons you give are unanswerable, I know. I am seriously disappointed. Yet I trust, though you may not be able to come just at present, you will follow me down there after a little while--say in the course of a few days or weeks--for I shall remain at the hall all summer and shall be always delighted to receive you. Will you promise to come?"
"Indeed, I fear I cannot promise that either, for I have a very great pressure of business; but if I can possibly manage to go, without infringing upon my duties, I shall be grateful for the privilege and very happy to avail myself of it; for--do you know, sir?--I was born in that neighborhood and passed my childhood and youth there. I love the old place, and almost long to see the old hut where I lived, and the hall where I went to school, and the wooded valley that lies between them, where I gathered wild-flowers and fruits in summer and nuts in winter, and--my mother's grave," said the unconscious son, speaking confidentially, and looking straight into his father's eyes.
"Ishmael," said Herman Brudenell, in a faltering voice, and forgetting to be formal, "you must come to me: that grave should draw you, if nothing else; it is a pious pilgrimage when a son goes to visit his mother's grave."
There was something in this new friend's words, look, and manner that always drew out the young man's confidence, and he said, in a voice trembling with emotion:
"She died young, sir; and oh! so sorrowfully! She was only nineteen, two years younger than I am now; and her son was motherless the hour he was born."
Violent emotion shook the frame of Herman Brudenell. He had not entered the room with any intention of making a disclosure to Ishmael; but he felt now that--come life, come death, come whatever might of it--he must claim Nora's son.
"Ishmael," he began, in a voice shaken with agitation, "I knew your mother."
"You, sir!" exclaimed the young man in surprise.
"Yes, I knew her and her sister, naturally, for they were tenants of mine."
"I knew that they lived on the outskirts of the Brudenell estate; but I did not know you were personally acquainted with them, sir; for I thought that you had resided generally in Europe."
"Not all the time; I was at Brudenell Hall when--you were born and your mother went to heaven, Ishmael."
Some of the elder man's agitation communicated itself to the younger, who half arose from his seat and looked intently at the speaker.
"I knew your mother in those days, Ishmael. She was not only one of the most beautiful women of her day, but one of the purest, noblest, and best."
Herman Brudenell hesitated. And Ishmael, who had dropped again into his seat, bent eagerly forward, holding his breath while he listened.
Herman continued.
"You resemble her in person and character, Ishmael. All that is best and noblest and most attractive in you, Ishmael, is derived under Divine Providence from your mother."
"I know it! Oh, I know it!"
"And, Ishmael, I loved your mother!"
"Oh, Heaven!" breathed the young man, in sickening, deadly apprehension; for well he remembered that this Mr. Herman Brudenell was the husband of the Countess of Hurstmonceux at the very time of which he now spoke.
"Ishmael, do not look so cruelly distressed. I loved her, she loved me in return, she crowned my days with joy, and--"
A gasping sound of suddenly suspended breath from Ishmael.
"I made her my wife," continued Herman Brudenell, in a grave and earnest voice.
"It was you then!" cried Ishmael, shaking with agitation.
"It was I!"
Silence like a pall fell between them.
"Oh, Ishmael! my son! my son! speak to me! give me your hand!" groaned Herman Brudenell.
"She was your wife! Yet she died of want, exposure, and grief!" said Nora's son, standing pale and