Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

1G2 RAVENSHOE.
"For what," he continued, "do you make out death even at
the worst? A terror, then a pang, more or less severe; then a
total severance of all ties on earth, an entire and permanent loss
of everything one has loved. After that remorse, and useless regret, and the horrible torture of missed opportunities without
number thrust continually before one. The monotonous song of
the fiends,' Too late! too late!' I have suffered all these things!
I have known what very few men have known and lived,despair; but perhaps the most terrible agony for a time was the
feeling of loss of identity, - that I was not myself; that my
whole existence from babyhood had been a lie. This at times, at
times only, mind you, washed away from me the only spar to
which I could cling, — the feeling that I was a gentleman.
When the deluge came, that was the only creed I had, and I was
left alone as it were on the midnight ocean, out of sight of land,
swimming with failing strength."
I have made Charles speak for himself. Ill this I know that I
am right. Now we must go on with him through the gathering
darkness without flinching; in terror, perhaps, but not in despair
as yet.
It never for one moment entered into his head to doubt the
truth of what Father Mackworth had set up. If he had had
doubts even to the last, he had none after lMackworth had looked
him compassionately in the face, and said, " God judge between
us if this paper be not true! " Though he distrusted Mackworth,
he felt that no man, be he never so profound an actor, could have
looked so and spoken so if he were not telling what he believed
to be the truth. And that he and Norah were mistaken he justly
felt to be an impossibility. No. He was the child of Petre
Ravenshoe's bastard son by an Irish peasant girl. He who but
half an hour before had been heir to the proud old name, to the
noble old house, the pride of the west country, to hundreds of
acres of rolling woodland, to mile beyond mile of sweeping moorland, to twenty thriving farms, deep in happy valleys, or perched
high up on the side of lofty downs, was now just this, - a peasant, an impostor.
The tenantry, the fishermen, the servants, they would come to
know all this. Had he died, (ah, how much better than this!)
they would have mourned for him, but what would they say or
think now? That he, the patron, the intercessor, the condescend
ing young prince, should be the child of a waiting-woman and a
gamnekeeper. Ah! mother, mother, God forgive you!
Adelaide: what would she think of this? He determined
that he must go and see her, and tell her the whole miserable
story. She was ambitious, but she loved him. 0 yes, she
loved him. She could wait. There were lands beyond the sea,