“No, sir, not that I remember,� he replied, after a moment.
“It is not likely that I would,� said Skelton in a voice of the most thrilling sweetness, “for you are mine—you are more to me than the whole world. You are my son.�
If Skelton expected Lewis to fall upon his neck when these words were uttered, he was cruelly disappointed. The boy drew himself up perfectly rigid. He put up his arm as if to ward off a blow, and turned deathly pale. Skelton, watching him with jealous affection, felt as if a knife had entered his heart when he saw the pallor, the distress, that quickly overcame Lewis. Neither spoke for some moments. Skelton, leaning forwards in his chair, his face pale and set, but his eyes burning, and his heart thumping like a nervous woman’s, watched the boy in a sort of agony of affection, waiting for the answering thrill that was to bring Lewis to his arms. But Lewis involuntarily drew farther off. A deep flush succeeded his first paleness; his face worked piteously, and suddenly he burst into a passion of tears.
Skelton fell back in his chair, with something like a groan. He had not meant to tell it in that way; he had been betrayed into it, as it were, by the very tenderness of his love, by the scorn of the idea that anybody should suspect that he would permit the Blairs, or anybody in the world, to profit to Lewis’s disadvantage. He had sometimes in bitterness said to himself that love was not meant for him. Whether he loved—as he truly did—in that first early passion for Elizabeth Armistead, he was scorned and cast aside; or whether he was loved with adoring tenderness, as he had been by the woman he married, yet it laid upon him a burden that he had carried angrily and rebelliously for many years. And seeing in Sylvia Shapleigh a woman that in his maturity he could love, there was linked with it either making his enemies rich at his expense, or else proclaiming the stain upon this boy to the world. And he did so love the boy! But after a while his indomitable courage rose. Lewis was excited; he did not fully take in what had been said to him; he could not understand what splendid possibilities were opened to him in those few words, how completely the face of existence was changed for him. Skelton tried to speak, but his voice died in his throat. He made a mighty effort, and it returned to him, but strained and husky.
“Lewis,� he said, “what distresses you? When I said that you were mine, I meant that henceforth you should be acknowledged to the world; that you should have from me all the tenderness that has been pent up in my heart for so many years; that you should have a great fortune. If you think I have wronged you, is not this reparation enough?�
“No,� said the boy after a while, controlling his sobs; “I know what it means if I am your son, Mr. Skelton. It means that I cannot hold up my head among honourable people again. Nothing can make up to me for that.�
Skelton remained silent. An impulse of pride in the boy came to him. Surely, Lewis was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. No boy of mean extraction could have that lofty sensibility. Lewis, gaining courage, spoke again, this time with dogged obstinacy.
“Mr. Bulstrode always told me that I was the son of Thomas Pryor and Margaret Pryor; and I have my father’s books and his picture upstairs—and—and—I believe he is my father, Mr. Skelton.�
To hear him speak of another man as his father gave Skelton a pang such as he had not felt for many years.
“But,� he said gently, “it can be proved; and you must see for yourself, Lewis, how immensely it would be to your worldly advantage.�