It was well that I had this strength, that the springs of life within me were both elastic and powerful, for the great battle of existence had but just commenced. I had been aroused to a knowledge of the feebleness and falsehood of others; soon I was to learn how much of evil lay sleeping in my own nature.
One night Turner came home earlier than usual, and in a tumult of excitement that we had seldom witnessed in him before.
He came to my little room, where I now spent all the day.
“Zana, Zana,” he said, drawing me toward him, “come hither, I have something to tell you—I have news.”
“What news?” I inquired, with a pang, for it seemed to me that Cora and Irving must have something to do with a subject that could so interest the old man. “I—I am not fond of news, Turner. Nothing good ever comes to me now.”
“God only knows, child, whether it is for good or for evil, but Lord Clare is in England! On his way even now to Greenhurst.”
My heart swelled. I felt the blood leaving my lips; my hands grew cold as ice.
“Turner,” I said, wringing his withered hand in mine—“Turner, is Lord Clare my father?”
His small eyes opened large and wide. The wrinkles deepened on his face like lines upon a map. My question took him by surprise.
“I would give ten years of my life, Zana, to say yes or no with certainty.”