"I am your father!"
And how should he explain such a relationship to the astonished young man? At making the dreadful confession, he felt that he should be likely to drop at the feet of his own son.
No! Ishmael Worth must remain Ishmael Worth. If he fulfilled the promise of his youth, it would not be his father's name, but his young mother's maiden name which would become illustrious in his person.
And yet, from the first moment of his seeing Ishmael and identifying him as Nora's son, he felt an irresistible desire to meet him face to face, to shake hands with him, to talk with him, to become acquainted with him, to be friends with him.
It was this longing that urged Mr. Brudenell to accept Judge Merlin's invitation and accompany the latter home. And now in a few moments this longing would be gratified.
In the midst of all other troubled thoughts one question perplexed him. It was this: What had become of the check he had given Hannah in the hour of his departure years ago?
That it had never been presented and cashed two circumstances led him to fear. The first was that he had never seen it among those returned to him when his bankbook had been made up; and the second was that Hannah had shared the bitter poverty of her nephew, and therefore could not have received and appropriated the money to her own uses.
As he had learned from the judge that Hannah was in Washington, he resolved to seek a private interview with her, and ascertain what had become of the check, and why, with the large sum of money it represented, she had neglected to use it, and permitted herself and her nephew to suffer all the evils of the most abject poverty.