Page 574 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

bank account, drank, smoked, and was merry. For five or
six months he thought himself in Paradise. Then he began
to find his life insufferably weary. The burden of hypocrisy
is very heavy to bear, and Rex was compelled perpetual-
ly to bear it. His mother demanded all his time. She hung
upon his lips; she made him repeat fifty times the story of
his wanderings. She was never tired of kissing him, of weep-
ing over him, and of thanking him for the ‘sacrifice’ he had
made for her.
‘We promised never to speak of it more, Richard,’ the
poor lady said one day, ‘but if my lifelong love can make
atonement for the wrong I have done you—‘
‘Hush, dearest mother,’ said John Rex, who did not in
the least comprehend what it was all about. ‘Let us say no
more.’
Lady Devine wept quietly for a while, and then went
away, leaving the man who pretended to be her son much
bewildered and a little frightened. There was a secret which
he had not fathomed between Lady Devine and her son. The
mother did not again refer to it, and, gaining courage as the
days went on, Rex grew bold enough to forget his fears. In
the first stages of his deception he had been timid and cau-
tious. Then the soothing influence of comfort, respect, and
security came upon him, and almost refined him. He began
to feel as he had felt when Mr. Lionel Crofton was alive. The
sensation of being ministered to by a loving woman, who
kissed him night and morning, calling him ‘son’—of being
regarded with admiration by rustics, with envy by respect-
able folk—of being deferred to in all things—was novel and