In a moment he comprehended the full extent of his misfortune.  He had been brought up a gentleman; he was now penniless—­without money or interest to secure a respectable situation, in which he might hope by industry and perseverance to obtain a competency.  Homeless and friendless, whither could he go?  How could he learn to forget what he had been, what he might still be, and all that he had lost?  He took up his hat from the table on which his father’s unjust testament lay, tore from it the crape that surrounded it—­that outward semblance of woe, which in his case was a bitter mockery—­and trampled it beneath his feet.  His mother raised her weeping eyes silently and imploringly to his face.  He returned to her side, pressed her hand affectionately between his own, and casting a contemptuous glance upon his brother, quitted the apartment, and, a few minutes after, the Hall.

When at a distance from the base wretch who had robbed him of his patrimony, by poisoning his father’s mind against him, Algernon gave free vent to the anguish that oppressed him.  Instead of seeking the widow’s cottage, and pouring into the bosom of Elinor the history of his wrongs, he hurried to that very dell in the park which had witnessed his brother’s jealous agonies, and throwing himself at his full length upon the grass, he buried his face in his hands and wept.

Could he have guessed his brother’s passion for Elinor Wildegrave, or had he witnessed his despair on that memorable night that had made him the happiest of men, he would frankly have forgiven him the ruin he had wrought.

A strong mind, when it comprehends the worst, rouses up all its latent energies to combat with, and triumph over, its misfortunes.  Algernon was an amiable man, a man of warm passions and generous impulses, but he was a weak man.  His indignation found vent in sighs and tears, when he should have been up and doing.

A light step rustled among the underwood—­ashamed of his weakness he sprang to his feet, and saw before him, not the slight form of Elinor Wildegrave, into which belief busy fancy had cheated him, but the drooping figure and mild face of his mother, shrouded in the gloomy garments of her recent widowhood.  With pale cheeks and eyelids swollen with tears, she had followed her injured son to his lonely hiding-place.

“Mother!” he cried, holding out his arms to receive the poor weeper, “dear mother! what have I done to be thus treated?”

A convulsive spasm choked his utterance; and as she seated herself beside him on the grass, his head sunk upon her lap, as in other years, and the proud man’s spirit was humbled and subdued like that of a little child.

“Your father, Algernon, has died, committing an act of injustice, but for your mother’s sake you must forgive him.”

Algernon tore up several tufts of grass, and flung them with violence from him—­but he remained silent.

“Your brother, too, my Algernon, though harsh and unkind in his general deportment, feels for your present situation.  He is anxious to make some amends to you for the injustice of his father.  He sent me to tell you that any sum you may think fit to name, and which you consider sufficient to settle you in life, shall be yours.”