"What lies in my power," said Basil slowly, "to repay you for your goodness to me, that I will do."
"I was sure of it, I was sure of it. You will find him changed, Newman; he wanders in his mind sometimes, but you will be gentle with him."
"Yes I will be gentle with him."
"We will forget the past--there shall be nothing in our hearts but love and forgiveness."
"Listen a moment. If anybody came to you and said I am not your son, would you believe him?"
"You ask it to try me, but you little know your mother's heart. If an angel from heaven were to come and say so, I should not believe him; I should know it was an evil spirit that spoke. I was going to speak to you of our good fortune. Shall I go on?"
"Yes, go on."
"It happened only a week before I met you--O, heaven be praised for it!--on the bridge. Do you remember, when everything went wrong with us and we were plunged in poverty, that your father still had some shares in mining companies left, shares that were supposed not to be worth the paper they were printed on? Do you remember it, my dear boy?"
"Well?"
"It is only three weeks ago that a gentleman found out where we were living--we were very, very poor, Newman--and told us that these shares were valuable, were worth a great deal of money. Fortunately your father had not destroyed them, and fortunately, too, when the gentleman called it was on one of your father's sensible days. He found the shares, and some of them have been sold. We are now rich--yes, my dear boy, rich. We should never murmur against heaven's decrees; it was all ordained--that this should happen at the time it did, and that I should meet you a few days afterwards, in time to save you. Newman, my dear, you had not a penny in your pockets."