She steadied herself against a chair, and steadying herself by all her hand came against as she walked, went across the room to the stairs, he following. There came at that moment a loud knock upon the outer door. He went dazedly to it and stared with unattending eyes at one who stood there, the light shining on his heavy waterproof coat that streamed with rain. It was the strange man whom they had overtaken as the cart came out of Great Letham.

"The convict Hunt's been seen near by," said the man abruptly. "Me and my mates thought it right to tell the village."

Percival closed the door upon him without a word. "Show me," he repeated to Aunt Maggie, and followed her to her room.

II

He sat on the edge of her bed while she told him his story. He sat motionless and with his face immobile. There was only one action that betrayed he was under any emotion. His chin was forward on his hand, elbow on knee. His fingers came across his mouth, and in the knuckle of one he set his teeth. Blood was there when he drew his hand away.

She finished: "It is all here, letters, certificates. Your mother's letters, Percival, and your father's. They are all in order from the first. There is one here to his grandmother and one to his lawyer telling them of his marriage. He left those with her when he went away. Then the letters from India."

He drew his hand from his mouth, the blood on his fist. "Leave me alone," he said. "Go away, Aunt Maggie, and leave me to look at them alone."

There was that in his voice which smote terribly across her spinning brain and caused her to obey him.

III

An hour he was occupied in reading the yellowed sheets whose heritage he was; for long thereafter sat and stared upon them. These devoted lines in that round hand were his mother's: his father's those ardent passions in those bold characters; he their son. He felt himself a shameless listener to penetrate these tender secrets; he felt himself a little child that hears his parents' voices. Sometimes, in that first mood, the blood ran hotly to his cheeks; sometimes, in that second, there came sobs to his throat and great trembling. Memories of thoughts, impulses, happenings that had been strange, returned to him, crowding upon him; here was their meaning, their interpretation here. In the library with Mr. Amber, "thinking without thinking as if I was in some one else who was thinking," shadows about the room and a moth thudding the window-pane—here the secret of it! In the library with Mr. Amber and the old man's cry: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my lord?"—here the answer! In presence of death with Mr. Amber, and "Hold my hand, my lord"—here what had opened Mr. Amber's eyes. In dreams in Burdon House, and searching, searching, and all the rooms familiar, and a voice that had cried, "My son, my son! Oh, we have waited for you!"—here, here, the key to it—here that voice in those yellowed sheets—here, here, what he had searched, streaming from those papers, tingling his skin, filling his throat as though from the faded lines strong essences rushed and pressed about him. His mother!—he spoke the word aloud, "Mother!" His father!—"Father!" Their son, "I am your son!..."