Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 1).djvu/182

Rh figure seized him by the breast and cried out vehemently: "Wouldst thou act thus to me, unnatural son?"—

"Yes," answered Edmond coldly, "I cannot do otherwise, I must!—leave me! I thought, however, for once that I should win your approhation."

"As a rebel?" cried the Counsellor of Parliament in a vehement voice, "as a murderer? that I must see die under martyrdom at the gallows? to outrage my grey hair? one whom the father must deliver up into the hands of the execuioner?"

The son looked at him fixedly, but coldly and collectedly; the father was deeply affected at it, but, at this ghastly look, had lost the strength which supernatural terror had lent him for a moment, and weeping aloud, he fell upon his son, who threw his arms round him, embraced him, and by his caresses sought to console the afflicted old man. "Oh, my son!" began the father, after a long pause, often interrupted by