"Your only son? Yours?" cried Miss Forrest's aunt.
"Mine," cried this gaunt old woman. "Oh, I was married on the Continent when quite a girl, and I dared not tell of it, for my husband was a gambler and a villain; but he was handsome and fascinating, and so he won me. Herod, this son of mine, was born just the day before his father was killed in a duel. Oh, spare him for my sake!"
I need not enter into the further explanations she made, nor how she pleaded for mercy for him, for they were painful to all. And did I spare him? Yes; on condition that he left England, never to return again, besides stipulating for Kaffar's safety.
He left the house soon after, and we all felt a sense of relief when he had gone, save Miss Staggles, or rather Mrs. Voltaire, who went up to her room weeping bitterly.
Need I relate what followed that night? Need I tell how I had to recount my doings and journeyings over again and again, while Simon and Kaffar were asked to give such information as I was unable to give, and how one circumstance was explained by another until all was plain? I will not tax my readers' patience by so doing; this must be left to their own imagination.
After this, Mrs. Walters insisted that we must have refreshments, and bustled away to order it, while a servant conducted Simon and Kaffar to a room where food was to be obtained; and so I was left alone with the woman I loved.
"Well?" I said, when they were gone.
"Well?" she replied, looking shyly into my face.
"I have done your bidding," I said, after a minute's silence. "I have freed you from that man."
"Thank God, you have!" she said, with a shudder. "Oh, if you only knew how I have prayed and hoped and thought!"