CHAPTER L.
A SECRET DIVINED.
"Take care! the 'Don' will be jealous!" exclaimed Mr. Walton, as he witnessed his wife's greeting of Maurice,—a greeting as tender as a true mother could have bestowed. "When Ronald was a boy he would rush about like one gone mad if his mother ever ventured to take another child upon her knee,—he would never have his throne usurped. Our 'Don' was always 'monarch of all he surveyed.'"
This jocular appellation of the 'Don,' Mr. Walton had bestowed upon his son on account of his early propensity to fight moral windmills, and the Quixotic zeal with which he espoused the cause of the weak and the fair. This knight-errant proclivity ripened from the Quixotism of boyhood into the chivalrous devotion which had manifested itself in his somewhat romantic friendship for Maurice,—a friendship productive of such happy results to the young viscount.
Ronald replied, "My affection has gained a victory over my jealousy, as Maurice discovered some years ago. I have just given him a new evidence of that fact by accompanying you and my mother to Washington in the hope of seeing him."
"Did you really come for my sake," asked Maurice, much moved.
Mrs. Walton answered, "How could we help being distressed about you? Your letters were so unsatisfactory. I shall know more of your true state in one tête-à-tête,—one good long heart-talk,—than I could learn by a thousand letters."
After this declaration, Ronald and his father jestingly pronounced themselves de trop and departed.
Maurice had long since given Mrs. Walton his full confidence, and now to sit and relate the events that had transpired during his stay in Washington was a heart-unburthening which lightened his oppressed spirit. It seemed to him as though some ray of hope must break through the clouds which enveloped him, if her clear, steady vision closely scanned their blackness; she might discover some gleam of light which he could not perceive.