There was something in Morton's voice so solemn, that it awed and touched both the old man and the infant; and Fanny, creeping to the protector thus assigned to her, and putting her little hands confidingly on his knees, said—
"Fanny will love you if papa wished it. Kiss Fanny."
"Is it his child—his?" said the blind man, sobbing. "Come to my heart; here—here! O God, forgive me!" Morton did not think it right at that moment to undeceive him with regard to the poor child's true connexion with the deceased: and he waited in silence till Simon, after a burst of passionate grief and tenderness, rose, and still clasping the child to his breast, said—
"Sir, forgive me!—I am a very weak old man—I have many thanks to give— I have much, too, to learn. My poor son! he did not die in want,—did he?"
The particulars of Gawtrey's fate, with his real name and the various aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to communicate. Morton hesitated a little before he answered:
"It is late now; you are not yet prepared to receive this poor infant at your home, nor to hear the details I have to state. I arrived in England but to-day. I shall lodge in the neighbourhood, for it is dear to me. If I may feel sure, then, that you will receive and treasure this sacred and last deposit bequeathed to you by your unhappy son, I will bring my charge to you to-morrow, and we will then, more calmly than we can now, talk over the past."
"You do not answer my question," said Simon, passionately; "answer that, and I will wait for the rest. They call me a miser! Did I send out my only child to starve? Answer that!"
"Be comforted. He did not die in want; and he has even left some little fortune for Fanny, which I was to place in your hands."
"And he thought to bribe the old miser to be human! Well—well—well—I will go home."
"Lean on me!"