The Veiled Man by Ambrose Pratt — Read

Cawthorne rode Black Prince homewards at a reckless gallop, but he met with no mishap. When he reached the Castle he went straight to his bedroom. He was in a state of feverish excitement. At one moment he bitterly blamed himself for deceiving the Countess, on the next he exulted almost wildly in the success of his hypocrisy. He could in no wise understand himself. If the Countess had really been his mother instead of his cousin's, she could not have more suddenly and overwhelmingly engaged his pity and affection. The cry "Mother! mother!" that he had uttered when first she spoke to him, had burst from his very soul, spontaneously, irresistibly, instinctively. And when later on he had summoned resolution to break his promise to his cousin and clear himself, he failed as signally as his duty had for a little while seemed clear. Even now he could not feel more than intellectually regretful that he had given a promise to his cousin unjustifiable in a strictly moral sense, and had also contemplated breaking it. He admitted the responsibility of three crimes: the making of a bad promise, the unfulfilled resolve to break his word, and the deceiving of a woman. But the two first caused him most discomfort. In the third he was supported against remorse by a strange unfathomable exaltation; a delight in the sin itself that surprised and shocked him.

He thrilled to remember that he had held the woman in his arms, that she had caressed him. And his wonder at the experience was the blissful wonder of a child at some unexpected act of fondness--exhibited by a reserved but deeply worshipped relative. He explained the fact in words that satisfied his mind, but did not still the throbbings of his heart. "She is my aunt," he said, "who took me when a motherless babe into her care, who loved and tended me as my own mother might have done, had she lived." But of all the things he had to wonder at, he wondered least at this--he was jealous of his cousin, jealous because the veiled man had alone the right to call the Countess by the name that trembled on his tongue, and sang itself over and over in his thoughts--"Mother--mother--mother."