But nobody, not even Miss Katharine, noticed this reunion of mother and children; for Miss Griselda’s carefully prepared speech had met with a startling interruption. The mother had stopped with her children, but two other unbidden guests had come forward. One of them was a boy—a boy with so noble a step, so gallant, so gay, so courtly a mien that all the visitors turned to gaze in unspoken admiration. Whose likeness did he bear? Why did Miss Griselda turn so deadly pale? Why did she drop Phil’s hand and take a step forward? The dark eyes, the eagle glance, the very features, the very form of that old hero of her life, the long-dead-and-gone Rupert Lovel, now stood before her in very deed.
“Aunt Grizel,” whispered little Phil, “isn’t he splendid? Isn’t he indeed the rightful heir? Just what he should be, so strong and so good! Aunt Grizel, isn’t it a great surprise? Mother, mother, speak, tell her everything!”
Then little Phil ran up to Rupert and took his hand and led him up to Miss Grizel.
“He always, always was the true heir,” he said, “and I wasn’t. Oh, mother, speak!”
Then there was a buzz of voices, a knot of people gathered quickly round Miss Griselda, and Phil, holding Rupert’s hand fast, looked again at his mother. The visitors whispered eagerly to one another, and all eyes were turned, not on the splendid young heir, but on the boy who held his arm and looked in his face; for a radiance seemed to shine on that slight boy’s pale brow which we see once or twice on the faces of those who are soon to become angels. The look arrested and startled many, and they gazed longer and with a deeper admiration at the false heir than at the true. For a couple of moments Mrs. Lovel had felt herself turning into stone; but with Phil’s last appealing gaze she shook off her lethargy, and moving forward took her place by Miss Griselda’s side, and facing the anxiously expecting guests said:
“I do it for Phil, in the hope—oh, my God!—in the vain hope of saving Phil. I arranged with Mr. Baring that I would tell the story. I wish to humiliate myself as much as possible and to show God that I am sorry. I do it for Phil, hoping to save him.”
Then she began her tale, wailing it out as if her heart were broken; and the interested guests pressed closer and closer, and then, unperceived by any one, little Phil slipped away.
“I will go into the forest,” he said to himself. “I can’t bear this. Oh, mother! Oh, poor, poor mother! I will go into the forest. Everything will be all right now, and I feel always happy and at rest in the forest.”
“Phil,” said a voice, and looking round he saw that his Cousin Rupert had followed him. “Phil, you look ghastly. Do you think I care for any property when you look like that?”
“Oh, I’ll be better soon, Rupert. I’m so glad you’ve come in time!”