“Now you know why I shrank from calling you my son, knowing that when the time came for you to be told of your parentage, I must also tell you that your father was a murderer!”
“It is false!” I cried, springing up and seizing both his hands. “It was an accident. No one could call it a murder. Oh, my father, my father, that you should have suffered like this for so slight a cause!”
A light leaped into his face and for a moment his wasted features and sunken eyes glowed and shone with a great, unexpected happiness. He drew me gently to him and laid his hands upon my shoulders.
“Thank God for this, Philip!” he said, with trembling voice. “It is greater consolation than I ever dared hope for in this world.”
CHAPTER LI.
DAWN.
On the morrow as we walked out together, my father and I, making our way as though by common consent up towards the bare brown hills, I remembered that there were many things which I wished to say to him.
“I want to ask you about Mr. Marx, father,” I began. “Everything concerning him is so utterly mysterious, especially his going away so suddenly. Apart from the fear of his having used some sort of foul play towards Hart—or Francis—I can’t help thinking that there is something else wrong with him. You trust him thoroughly, I suppose?” I added hesitatingly.
“I have always done so,” my father answered quietly.
“Do you like the man himself?” I asked.
My father shrugged his shoulders indifferently.