"Illegitimacy!" exclaimed Georges, like one in a dream. "That was false; for I married his parents—baptized him!"
"Oh!" shrieked Minnie, starting from Mary's arms, and grasping his arm; "your name then is not Georges—'tis d'Estrées!"
"I will tell you all, my poor child," he said, when his overflowing tears had subsided; and he leaned over the pillow, where lay the pale and exhausted Minnie from over-excitement. "I was chaplain in Gibraltar to Lord Dillon, who was governor there, and I knew, and became most intimate with Tremenhere, who was quartered there. For family reasons he did not wish his marriage with Helena Nunoz, with whom he had become acquainted, known to any one, on account of the obscurity of her family, during his father's lifetime. I married them privately: shortly afterwards they left for England: here, in Paris, they were re-married on account of her religion, she insisted upon it, by a catholic priest: all was legally, correctly done. Mr. Tremenhere was too good a man to have it otherwise. When his wife, than whom a better creature never existed, was near her confinement, he felt desirous the child should be baptized by me; and for that purpose I obtained permission of Lord Dillon, who had quitted Gibraltar, to go to Yorkshire, and there the ceremony was performed, and registered, in the parish church.
"True," answered Mary, "but no one could discover whither Mr. d'Estrées who officiated had gone; besides, 'twas the marriage which was disputed, not baptism."
"I have now," he continued sighing, "to touch upon a passage of agony in my own life, which will account for my concealment. Shortly afterwards I quitted Lord Dillon, sufficiently provided for, for all moderate wants; I had a son of my own, a fine youth of fourteen. After leaving his lordship, at Mr. Tremenhere's prayer I repaired to Yorkshire with my son, who was to be as companion and friend to his son, then a boy of ten; all was happiness and peace for nearly a year. There was something in my child I could never fully understand—a disposition difficult to govern; something not open and candid—but I hoped time might make him otherwise, and the society of those around him. A year passed—I will but touch upon this; it is too painful," the poor father trembled as he spoke. "The manor-house was robbed one night; after a long, painful investigation, you may guess my horror at the discovery, my son was implicated in it. A sum to a considerable amount had been abstracted from Mr. Tremenhere's old cabinet; he, in mercy to me, hushed up the affair; my son fled, and I became a broken-hearted man. To stay was impossible; Mr. Tremenhere felt this too, so I left, to the deep regret of himself and his angel wife. Little more remains to be said—after awhile, all communication ceased between us, my unhappy boy discovered me, with him I shared the little I had, and he went to America, promising me to reform. I have never heard from him, and I became as Monsieur Georges what you see!"
"Do you not remember me?" asked Mary, pale with emotion and memory. "I was Mary Burns, the child whom you have often caressed; I knew I had seen you in days of youth!"
Let us pass over the remainder of this scene; Mary told him all that which was strange to him, but what our readers already know. Minnie could but weep in joy, in hope; for now, indeed, she had a rich present to lay at Miles's feet—a mother's fame!
"Think, my dear child," he said, when all was told, "that the night your kind heart (for I read it truly) called the shivering old man to your fire, your guardian angel led him in to bring you a blessing. And you will be blessed; doubt it not—here with your husband's love, hereafter with a better than even that, for our good deeds come home to roost far more than our bad ones; there is much mercy around us, poor, weak, mortal children, that we are."