His memory conjured up the image of the wife who had proved so false to him, who fled with her paramour, and died in a foreign land unheeded and uncared for.
How about the young creature before him?
Was she to be trusted?
Time will show.
“I shall learn,” said he, in answer to her question, “to love you best for your own sake, and no other.”
“Ah!” ejaculated Aveline, a little disconcerted, “for my own sake?”
“Yes,” he answered. “I think you good and true—nay, I am sure of it. Is this little fellow your son? You seem to me to look so very young that I can hardly believe you are a mother, or that I am a great grandfather,” he added, with a smile.
“You mustn’t tell people that, my lord,” observed Mr. Chicknell, in a bantering tone.
“They’ll find it out without any one telling them,” answered the earl, taking the boy in his arms, and, placing him on his knee, looking at him with evident interest.
“He has something of the Ethalwood face,” he said, musingly.