``Mother,'' he said at length, ``concern not yourself
about such things. I cannot be subjected to
such infamy, for never will I deserve it; and were
I threatened with it, I should know how to die
before I was so far dishonoured.''
``There spoke the son of the husband of my
heart!'' replied Elspat; and she changed the discourse,
and seemed to listen in melancholy acquiescence,
when her son reminded her how short the
time was which they were permitted to pass in
each other's society, and entreated that it might
be spent without useless and unpleasant recollections
respecting the circumstances under which
they must soon be separated.
Elspat was now satisfied that her son, with some
of his father's other properties, preserved the
haughty masculine spirit which rendered it impossible
to divert him from a resolution which he had
deliberately adopted. She assumed, therefore, an
exterior of apparent submission to their inevitable
separation; and if she now and then broke out into
complaints and murmurs, it was either that she
could not altogether suppress the natural impetuosity
of her temper, or because she had the wit to
consider, that a total and unreserved acquiescence
might have seemed to her son constrained and suspicious,
and induced him to watch and defeat the
means by which she still hoped to prevent his leaving
her.
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