He was silent. She leaned forward and grasped his arm.
“Did you,—do you believe it? Speak, Gilbert!”
When he did speak, his voice was singularly low and gentle. “Never mind, mother!” was all he could say. His head was still turned away from her, but she knew there were tears on his cheeks.
“Gilbert, it is a lie!” she exclaimed, with startling vehemence. “A lie,—A LIE! You are my lawful son, born in wedlock! There is no stain upon your name, of my giving, and I know there will be none of your own.”
He turned towards her, his eyes shining and his lips parted in breathless joy and astonishment.
“Is it—is it true?” he whispered.
“True as there is a God in Heaven.”
“Then, mother, give me my name! Now I ask you, for the first time, who was my father?”
She wrung her hands and moaned. The sight of her son's eager, expectant face, touched with a light which she had never before seen upon it, seemed to give her another and a different pang.
“That, too!” She murmured to herself.