"That can be accounted for," he said, "by the fact that I had only come on board a couple of hours before at Adelaide, and doubtless the purser had not time to enter my name. I had no intention of taking passage in that special liner until the morning of the day when the wreck occurred. Well, the captain went down with the ship, and only one woman, two children, myself, and some of the sailors wore rescued. As the ship went down I was struck by a spar on my head and badly injured. When I was finally picked up I was quite unconscious, and for six weeks and more I was in hospital at Adelaide. As soon as ever I was well enough I took the first boat home; and here I am, Westenra, in time—oh, I hope in time—for the best of all. But tell me, how have things been going? I have been more anxious than I can say. There must have been money difficulties. You can little imagine what I went through. Can you bear just to speak of your mother? And can you bear to tell me how 17 Graham Square has been going?"
"We had hard times, but we pulled through," I answered briefly.
"Did you?" he cried, with a sigh of relief; "what a wonderful creature Jane Mullins is! What an extraordinary head for business she possesses! I must go and see her to-morrow, or—or to-night."
"Don't go to-night," I said, and I stretched out my hand a very little and then drew it in again; but he saw the gesture, and suddenly his strong brown hand took mine and closed over it and held it firmly.
"Then I am in time, in time for the best of all," he said, and he gave a sigh straight from the bottom of his heart. "Now, I must tell you something. Will you listen?"
I drew my hand away, he dropped it, looked at me with a hurt expression, and then went on hurriedly, "I have got something to confess to you."
"I am listening," I said.
"Perhaps you have guessed the truth. I have a great deal to answer for. I cannot tell you how I have reproached myself. I have always taken an interest in you and in your mother. Even as a schoolboy at Eton this has been the case."
"But why?" I asked.
"Did you never know—I hoped not, but your mother knew, only I begged of her not to tell you—I am the son of the man whose life your father saved? His name was Chaloner then, but with some property he changed it to the one which I now bear, and I have been called Randolph almost the whole of my life. When my father died he gave me a charge. He said if ever the time came when you or your mother were in difficulties or peril or danger, I was to remember what your gallant father had done for him. He need not have told me, for the deed had always excited my keenest admiration; but I never came across you until that day when, by the merest chance, I was at the house-agents when you came in. I heard your name and I guessed who you were, but I did not dare to look at you then. I felt strangely overpowered.