still awaited his return.

He walked up to Lumley, and held out his hand. "You have saved me from a
dreadful crime,--from an everlasting remorse. I thank you!"

Hardened and frigid as his nature was, Lumley was touched; the movement
of Maltravers took him by surprise. "It has been a dreadful duty,
Ernest," said he, pressing the hand he held; "but to come, too, from
_me_,--your rival!"

"Proceed, proceed, I pray you; explain all this--yet explanation! what do
I want to know? Evelyn is my daughter,--Alice's child! For Heaven's
sake, give me hope; say it is not so; say that she is Alice's child, but
not _mine_! Father! father!--and they call it a holy name--it is a
horrible one!"

"Compose yourself, my dear friend: recollect what you have escaped! You
will recover this shock. Time, travel--"

"Peace, man,--peace! Now then I am calm! When Alice left me she had no
child. I knew not that she bore within her the pledge of our ill-omened
and erring love. Verily, the sins of my youth have arisen against me;
and the curse has come home to roost!"

"I cannot explain to you all details."

"But why not have told me of this? Why not have warned me; why not have
said to me, when my heart could have been satisfied by so sweet a tie,
'Thou hast a daughter: thou art not desolate'? Why reserve the knowledge
of the blessing until it has turned to poison? Fiend that you are! you