“I—I—am I to believe you? If he should be my son!” he cried, starting up, cold with dread.
“He is your son. He could be no other man's son. I have her dying word for it. She declared it in the presence of her God. Wait! Where are you going?”
“I am going down to him!”
“Not yet, James. I have still more to say to you, more to confess. Here! Take this package of letters. Read them as you sit beside his bed—not his death-bed, for I shall restore him to health, never fear. If he were to die I should curse myself to the end of time, for I and I alone would have been the cause. Here are her letters, and the one Feverelli wrote to her. This is her death-bed letter to you. And this is a letter to her son and yours. You may some day read it to him. And here—this is a document requiring me to share my fortune with her son. It is a pledge that I took before my father died a few years ago. If the boy ever appeared he was to have his mother's share of the estate, and it is not an inconsiderable amount, James. He is independent of you. He need ask nothing of you. I was taking him home to his own.”
She shrank slightly as he stood over her. There was more of wonder and pity in his face than condemnation. She looked for the anger she had expected to arouse in him, and was dumbfounded to see that it was not revealed in his steady, appraising eyes.
“Your plan deserved a better fate than this, Yv—Thérèse. It was prodigious! I—I can almost pity you.”
“Have you no pain, no regret, no grief?” she cried weakly.
“Yes,” he said, controlling himself with difficulty. “Yes, I know all these and more.” He picked up the package of letters and glanced at the superscription on the outer envelope. Suddenly he raised them to his lips and, with his eyes closed, kissed the words that were written there. Her head drooped and a sob came into her throat. She did not look up until he began speaking to her again, quietly, even patiently.
“But why should you, even in your longing for revenge, have planned to humiliate and degrade him even more than I could have done? Was it just to your sister's son that you should blight his life, that you should turn him into a skulking, sneaking betrayer? What would you have gained in the end? His loathing, his scorn. Thérèse, did you not think of all this?”
“I have told you that I thought of everything. I was mistaken. I did not stop to think that I would be taking him away from happiness in the shape of love that he might bear for someone else. I did not know that there was a Lydia Desmond. When I came to know my heart softened and my purpose lost most of its force. He would have been safe with me, but would he have been happy? I could not give him the kind of love that Lydia promised. I could only be his mother's sister to him. He was not in love with me. He has always loved Lydia. I fascinated him, just as I fascinated you. He would not have gone away with me, even after you had told him that he was not your son. He would not do that to you, James, in spite of the blow you struck him. He was loyal to Lydia and to himself.”