Another long pause. She was by strong effort retaining the clarity of her faculties under some heavy shock. She repeated:
“Who bear as I bore!”
The silence became acutely poignant.
“It must be told,” she breathed finally. “You have asked me why I did not tell you my suspicions. I will tell you now. Charles Thorne—”
Her next words came so low that had it not been for the pregnant silence of the great drawing-room they could not have been heard.
“Is my son.”
I found I had been holding my breath; and I glanced quickly at Lanagan, to see his breast falling with a deep exhalation.
“My husband did not know,” she continued, colourlessly. “Charles Thorne does not know I am his mother. I have tried to live a full Christian life. I have given by tens of thousands to aid the erring. I have thought to make all atonement....
“And yet the blood of my blood slew the heart of my heart, my dear husband, one of God’s noble men....”
After that wrenching confession her normal poise began by degrees to return as the strength of an extraordinary mind began to assert itself. The story was soon told: of an alliance before her marriage to Swanson, of the boy, taken by the father, to be sent back to her after fifteen years. The dissolute father, on his deathbed, sent Charles back to the mother.