Aware how delicately
the General felt on the subject of reputation,
he assailed him with remonstrances on such
conduct, in presence of so many witnesses. But
the mind had ceased to answer to that once powerful
key-note.
``I care not if the whole world hear my sin and
my punishment,'' said Witherington. ``It shall
not be again said of me, that I fear shame more
than I repent sin. I feared shame only for Zilia,
and Zilia is dead!''
``But her memory, General---spare the memory
of your wife, in which the character of your children
is involved.''
``I have no children!'' said the desperate and
violent man. ``My Reuben is gone to Heaven,
to prepare a lodging for the angel who has now
escaped from earth in a flood of harmony, which
can only be equalled where she is gone. The
other two cherubs will not survive their mother.
I shall be, nay, I already feel myself, a childless
man.''
``Yet I am your son,'' replied Middlemas, in a
tone sorrowful, but at the same time tinged with
sullen resentment---``Your son by your wedded
wife. Pale as she lies there, I call upon you both
to acknowledge my rights, and all who are present
to bear witness to them.''
``Wretch!'' exclaimed the maniac father, ``canst
thou think of thine own sordid rights in the midst
of death and frenzy? My son!---thou art the fiend
who hast occasioned my wretchedness in this world,
and who will share my eternal misery in the next.
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