"I think so; but if you'll tell me I shall be sure."
And Jack, as the better speaker, laid the matter before him, and both eyed him anxiously the while.
"I am glad you came to me first," he said. "I can probably tell you all you wish to know; and you must take it from me, boys, that if it was never told to you before, it was for good reason. Better still if it had never needed to be told at all. Best of all if there had been nothing to tell. The trouble is none of our making. All we can do is to face it like men, and that, I know, you will do."
And he told them, as clearly and briefly as possible, all that he had learned concerning their births.
"To sum it all up," he said in conclusion, "you are sons of the same father, and so are half-brothers. But which of you is the son of Lady Susan and which the son of Mrs. Lee's daughter, no man on earth knows. And again--whether your father was really married to Mrs. Lee's daughter I doubt if any one but himself knows. And so you see the tangle the whole matter is in, and you can understand why it was kept from you. We could only present you with a puzzle of which we did not know the solution. It could only have upset your lives as it has done now. We have gained twenty years by keeping silence."
"Old Mrs. Lee knows which of us is which, I suppose," said Jack. And Jim jumped at the thought.
"I have very little doubt that she does, Jack; but she has never shown any indication of it whatever."
"And is her daughter still alive?"
"I doubt if even she knows that. She has not heard of her for a great many years."
"Does Gracie know anything about it all?" asked Jim.