"No one. I had fainted, and, when I came to my senses, I found my babe lying on the bed beside me; and," added the lady, with a mother's light rekindling in her eyes, "with all a young mother's first love, I clasped it to my bosom."
"And this woman and her child?"
"I never saw them more. That day my noble lord rescued me; and after he had seen and kissed the babe, I remember he pleasantly said to those around, 'In losing one I have gained two.' My poor, departed Lester! Heaven be merciful to his soul!"
"And I am that babe?"
"Thou art, my son!" she said, affectionately.
"I am not!" he cried, fiercely.
"Not my son?"
"Not thy son!"
"What mean you, insolent boy?"
"In one word, I will tell thee. The guilty paramour of that woman having resolved to put out of the world the living witness of the wrong he had done her, threatened also her life when she refused to surrender it. Prompted by the instinct of maternal love to save it, she laid it, while thou wert in a state of insensibility, by thy side, and gave thine to him, palming it off as her own, which, by this stratagem, was saved—and still lives. I am HE!"