In five minutes Captain Clinton hurried into the saddle-room, where Rupert was standing. He was pale and agitated.
"What is the matter, Rupert,—has anything happened to Edgar? I know that it must be something very serious or you would never come like this."
"It is serious, father, very serious;" and he told him what had happened, and handed him the letter that Edgar had left. "You see he has evidently gone out of his mind, father."
Captain Clinton ran his eye over the letter and gave an exclamation of surprise and grief, then he stood for a minute covering his face with his hand. When he removed it Rupert saw that his eyes were filled with tears. "Poor boy!" he murmured, "I see that we have made a terrible mistake, although we did it for the best."
"A mistake, father! Why, is it possible, can it be true that—"
"That Edgar is not your brother, my boy? Yes, it is certain that he is not your brother, though whether he or you is our son we know not."
Rupert stood speechless with astonishment. "One of us not your son!" he said at last in a broken voice. "Oh, father, how can that be?"
"It happened thus, Rupert," Captain Clinton said, and then told him the story of the confusion that had arisen between the children. He then went on: "You see, Rupert, we hoped, your mother and I, at first that we should find out as you grew up, by the likeness one of you might develop to your mother or myself, which was our child; but for some years now, my boy, I have feared rather than hoped to discover a likeness, and have been glad that neither of you took after either of us, as far as we could see. We loved you equally, and could not bear the thought of losing either of you. We had two sons instead of one, that was all; and had one been proved to be ours, we should have lost the other. We intended to tell you in a short time how the matter stood, and that while one was our adopted son and the other our own, we neither knew nor cared which was which, loving you both equally and regarding you both as our own. Indeed we should never have told you about it, had it not been that as the story of the confusion at your birth was known to a great many men who were at that time in India, it was almost sure to come to your ears sooner or later. Had we ever dreamt that it would come like this, of course we should have told you long ago. But how can Edgar have learnt it? Still more, how can anyone have been able to tell him—what even we do not know—that he is not our son?"
"You will know when the letter arrives by the next post, father. But now I have heard the story, I think it must have been told him by a woman;" and he related how they had been watched by a woman who was a stranger to them.
"What was she like, Rupert?"