'My poor Piers! my poor Piers!' he groaned. 'John Balderstone, none but God and myself can tell how I have suffered in my soul for my severity to him in the past time.'
And so the long years had gone, and others had come; and behold this was all that had resulted from the old man's pride, petulance, and injustice. His only son had died in penury and obscurity; that son's wife had despised even his vaunted name and had taken her own; and now, their only son, the legal and lawful heir of Eaglescraig, a crushed and ruined creature like his father before him, had been driven forth into the world, in darkness and despair, too surely also to ruin and death!
Sir Piers sighed bitterly, and seemed utterly to forget the existence of Hew, to whom this new state of things came like a prolonged roll of thunder. To the former it seemed as if the irrevocable past was throwing its shadow over his present and his future—a shadow deep as the grave; nay, that past made the future, and its shadow was over him still!
This accounted for the expression of eye that Mrs. Garth had traced in Cecil; and Sir Piers had now a perfect key to that which had so often perplexed him—a something that the voice, face, and manner of Cecil brought to memory out of the mists of the past, causing him much vague and mental exercise—the resemblance to his dead son; clearly accounted for now, when too late—all too late, perhaps.
'Scratched—out of the race!' muttered Hew with an oath, as he slunk away, and betook him to brandy and seltzer in Tunley's pantry, while Mary, her lithe and slender form full of energy, her dark and eloquent eyes filled with joyous light, seemed all unlike the languid Mary of the past month or so, as Balderstone's narrative came to an end.
Could it all really be in earnest, and no dream? Cecil was her cousin—her own cousin, and that lawful heir of Eaglescraig whom Sir Piers, by the powers of his father's will, desired she should marry, while Hew was scarcely even a cousin by Scottish reckoning—little more than a namesake to her; but Cecil—Cecil, where was he?
Here was an astounding discovery; an absorbing topic from the discussion of which, although their minds were full of it, and overpowered by it, they were compelled to cease during dinner and other meals, in that jerky, half-and-half way in which people are wont to adopt when servants are present, though the interest of their whole souls may be concentrated in it for the time.
But menials are close and watchful observers, and it was soon pretty well known to Mr. Tunley and all in the servants' hall, the topic which engrossed those in the dining-room—that Mr. Hew was not heir to the general's title and estate; but some one else was—who they scarcely could define. So the matter was speculated upon, twisted and turned over, eliciting a score of different opinions; but to all it was apparent that Sir Piers was perplexed, was daily conferring with John Balderstone; that Miss Mary—'bless her,' said they all—was radiant with joy; and Mr. Hew, with whom none sympathised—as might be expected—wore a sullen, baffled, and exasperated look.
The tables had been turned with a vengeance; but Hew had one crumb of comfort: Cecil was gone, no one knew where, and might never be heard of again, in which case he—Hew—would resume his old place as heir of entail!
In his anxiety to discover the lost, and make some reparation to the dead, Sir Piers forgot all the dark colours in which Hew had painted Cecil, and felt with regard to his son that, as Dickens says, 'there is no remorse which is so deep as that which is unavailing; and if we would be spared its tortures, let us remember this in time!'