The old man grasped his hand again with both his own. "Ah, I know you are the boy, now!" he exclaimed. "I have looked everywhere for you! Thank God, I have found you before it was too late! Do you know how I have longed for you for twenty years?—for the boy who stood by Felicia through that long, terrible time, when I could do nothing—nothing? Granthope, I don't care what you have been—charlatan or fakir or criminal, there's a debt I owe you, and I shall pay it! Oh, you don't know! You don't know!" He stopped and held out his hands pathetically. "Why, it was to find you that I first went to Madam Spoll! I don't know how I can apologize or make up for the way I've treated you—you, of all men in the world!"
"But I can't understand yet," said Granthope, touched at the old man's atonement. "I heard—from Vixley, it came—that you had acknowledged—you must forgive me—to an illegitimate son. Can you blame me for thinking that it must be I?"
The old man dropped his head on his hand. "I see, now," he said drearily. "Oh, it must all come out, I suppose. I owe it to you to tell you, at least."
"You need tell me nothing more than you have told," Granthope said eagerly. "I didn't come here to pry into your secrets, Mr. Payson, or to make use of them."
"Oh, I know, now! But it is hard to speak. And I don't know even whether I have the right to tell or not. It's not my secret alone. But tell me first what else you know." He took a chair again and motioned for Granthope to sit down.
"I know that Madam Grant had a wedding trousseau that she kept in a trunk, and that the same trunk with the same contents, is now up-stairs in your garret."
"How can you know that?"
"I saw it last night. Your daughter showed it to me."
"Clytie—she showed it to you? You were here? How could that be?"
"It means, Mr. Payson, that I love your daughter—that we love each other. There is no time to explain how that came about, now, but I hope to prove to you that I am worthy of her. We have met often since you forbade me to come here. We were tacitly engaged, when I got this information—that you had a child—and that Felicia Grant was the mother. There was only one solution of the mystery—that I was that child, and that Clytie and I were half-brother and sister. We had to be sure before we broke off our affair, and I came up here to identify the trunk she had seen. I had to tell her what I thought was the truth, and last night we parted—for ever. You may imagine now how I long to believe what you say, yet how impossible it seems!"