“Ellis,” said Mrs. Whitford, laying her hand upon the arm of her son and speaking with slow impressiveness, “I am older than you are by nearly thirty years, have seen more of life than you have, and know some things that you do not know. I have your welfare at heart more deeply than any other being except God.  I know you better in some things than you know yourself.  Love makes me clear-seeing.  And this is why I am in such earnest with you to-night.  Ellis, I want a promise from you.  I ask it in the name of all that is dearest to you—­in my name—­in the name of Blanche—­in the name of God!”

All the color had, gone out of Mrs. Whitford’s face, and she stood trembling before her son.

“You frighten me, mother,” exclaimed the young man.  “What do you mean by all this?  Has any one been filling your mind with lies about me?”

“No; none would dare speak to me of you in anything but praise, But I want you to promise to-night, Ellis.  I must have that, and then my heart will be at ease.  It will be a little thing for you, but for me rest and peace and confidence in the place of terrible anxieties.”

“Promise!  What?  Some wild fancies have taken hold of you.”

“No wild fancies, but a fear grounded in things of which I would not speak.  Ellis, I want you to give up the use of wine.”

The young man did not answer immediately.  All the nervous restlessness he had exhibited died out in a moment, and he stood very still, the ruddy marks of excitement going out of his face.  His eyes were turned from his mother and cast upon the floor.

“And so it has come to this,” he said, huskily, and in a tone of humiliation.  “My mother thinks me in danger of becoming a drunkard—­thinks me so weak that I cannot be trusted to take even a glass of wine.”

“Ellis!” Mrs. Whitford again laid her hand upon the arm of her son.  “Ellis,” her voice had fallen to deep whisper, “if I must speak, I must.  There are ancestors who leave fatal legacies to the generations that come after them, and you are one accursed by such a legacy.  There is a taint in your blood, a latent fire that a spark may kindle into a consuming flame.”

She panted as she spoke with hurried utterance.  “My father!” exclaimed the young man, with an indignant flash in his eyes.

“No, no, no!  I don’t mean that.  But there is a curse that descends to the third and fourth generation,” replied Mrs. Whitford, “and you have the legacy of that curse.  But it will be harmless unless with your own hand you drag it down, and this is why I ask you to abstain from wine.  Others may be safe, but for you there is peril.”

“A scarecrow, a mere fancy, a figment of some fanatic’s brain;” and Ellis Whitford rejected the idea in a voice full of contempt.

But the pallor and solemnity of his mother’s face warned him that such a treatment of her fears could not allay them.  Moreover, the hint of ancestral disgrace had shocked his family pride.