“What?”
“Lionel Despard—your father, and Ralph Brandon’s bosom friend.”
Despard looked transfixed. Mrs. Thornton gazed at her husband, and gave an unutterable look at Despard, then, covering her face with her hands, she burst into an agony of tears.
“My God,” cried Despard, passing his hand over his forehead, “my father died when I was a child, and nobody was ever able to tell me any thing about him. And Brandon was his friend. He died thus, and his family have perished thus, while I have known nothing and done nothing.”
“You at least are not to blame,” said Thornton, calmly, “for you had scarcely heard of Brandon’s name. You were in the north of England when this happened, and knew nothing whatever about it.”
That evening Despard went home with a deeper trouble in his heart. He was not seen at the Grange for a month. At the end of that time he returned. He had been away to London during the whole interval.
As Mrs. Thornton entered to greet him her whole face was overspread with an expression of radiant joy. He took both her hands in his and pressed them without a word. “Welcome back,” she murmured—“you have been gone a long time.”
“Nothing but an overpowering sense of duty could have kept me away so long,” said he, in a deep, low voice.
A few similar commonplaces followed; but with these two the tone of the voice invested the feeblest commonplaces with some hidden meaning.
At last she asked: “Tell me what success you had?” He made no reply; but taking a paper from his pocket opened it, and pointed to a marked paragraph. This was the month of March. The paper was dated January 14, 1847. The paragraph was as follows: