"I have come back to tell you something, mother. I'm not what you think me—I'm a scoundrel, a rascal. I'm bad, I'm not good. I—I've been deceiving you—I'm a thief."
"Hush!" interrupted Mrs. Staunton. "Come a little closer to me. You're not well, my dear boy—let me put my arm round your neck. You're not well, my own lad; but if you think——"
"I'm as bad as I can be, mother," said George, "but it isn't bodily illness that ails me. I said I'd make a clean breast of it. It's the only thing left for me to do."
A frightened look came into Mrs. Staunton's eyes for a moment, but then they filled with satisfaction as they rested on the dark head close to her own.
"Whatever you've done, you are my boy," she said.
"No, no; a thief isn't your boy," said George. "I tell you I'm a thief," he added fiercely, looking up at her with two bloodshot eyes. "You've got to believe it. I'm a thief. I stole fifty pounds from Gering yesterday—and I was bad before that. I won money at play—I've won and lost, and I've lost and won. Once Lawson gave me two hundred and fifty pounds to invest, and I stole it to pay a gambling debt, and Effie got it back for me—she borrowed it for me. My father wouldn't have given you to me if he had known that. I had it on my conscience when I was kneeling by his deathbed, but I couldn't tell him then; and when he gave you to me, I felt that I never could tell. Then we came to London, and I began to deceive you. I told you a false story about that rise of salary—I never had any rise; and I took your fifty pounds two days ago out of the bank, and I stole money to pay it back again. That's your son George, mother—your true son in his real colors. Now you know everything."
George stepped a pace or two away from the bed as he spoke. He folded his arms.
Mrs. Staunton was looking at him with a piteous, frightened expression on her face. Suddenly she broke into a feeble and yet terrible laugh.
"My son George," she said. "That explains everything. My son still—still my son!" She laughed again.
There came a knock at the outer door.