The moment Sir Robert joined Pembroke, he read in his pale and haggard features how much he needed the intelligence he was summoned to hear. Mr. Somerset bowed coldly but respectfully on his father's entrance, and begged to be honored with his commands.
"They are what I expect will restore to you your usual looks and manner, my dear son," returned the baronet; "so attend to me."
Pembroke listened to his father's narrative with mute and, as it proceeded, amazed attention. But when the name of Therese Sobieski was mentioned as that of the foreign lady whom he had married and deserted, the ready apprehension of his breathless auditor conceiving the remainder yet unuttered by the agitated narrator, Sir Robert had only to confirm, though in a hardly audible voice, the eager demand of his son, "Was Thaddeus Sobieski indeed his brother?" and while hearing the reply, unable to ask another question, he looked wildly from earth to heaven, as if seeking where he might yet be found.
"O, my father!" cried he, "what have you done? Where is he? For what have you sacrificed him?"
"Hear me to an end," rejoined the baronet. He then, in as few words as possible, repeated the subsequent events of the recent meeting.
Pembroke's raptures were now as high as his despair had been profound. He threw himself on his father's breast; he asked for his friend, his brother, and begged to be conducted to him. Sir Robert did no more than open the intervening door, and in one instant the brothers were locked in each other's arms.
The transports of the young men for a long while denied them words; but their eyes, their tears, and their united hands imparted to each breast a consciousness of mutual love unutterable, not even to be expressed by those looks which are indeed the heralds of the soul.
Sir Robert wept like an infant whilst contemplating these two affectionate brothers; in a faltering voice he exclaimed, "How soon may these plighted hands be separated by inexorable law! Alas, Pembroke, you cannot be ignorant that I buy this son at a terrible price from you!"
At this speech the blood rushed over the cheek of the ingenuous Pembroke; but Thaddeus, turning instantly to Sir Robert, said, with an eloquent smile.
"On this head I trust that neither my father nor my brother will entertain one thought to trouble them. Had I even the inclination to act otherwise than right, my revered grandfather has put it out of my power to claim or to bear any other name than that of Sobieski. He made me swear never to change it; and, as I hope to meet him hereafter," added he, with solemnity, "I will obey him. Therefore, my beloved father, in secret only can I enjoy the conviction that I am your son, and Pembroke's brother. Yet the happiness I receive with the knowledge of being so will ever live here, will ever animate my heart with gratitude to Heaven and to you."