"Mother, I've been tempted to believe you were crazy, the way you've been running on, and I fear you'll think the same of me when I tell you this boy is my own child. Forgive me for keeping a secret from you so long, but I've been married going upon four years, and this is Douglas Meredith, your own little grandson."
"Married?" she echoed, without half so much surprise as he had expected, and again winding her arms about his neck she kissed his brow, and said, solemnly:
"I knew it could not be true what Jewel said, that you had wronged her sister. I knew my boy was too noble to commit such a terrible sin!"
"When you have welcomed your grandson, mother, you shall explain all this mysterious talk," he said; for he comprehended that she had learned something of his and Flower's sad story.
"It is Flower's child?" she said; and when he answered yes she took little Douglas into her arms and fondly caressed him while hurriedly telling her son all that had happened since his hurried departure for the South.
He in his turn confided to her everything, and ended by asking anxiously if she thought it likely that Flower would ever care for him again when she learned the treachery by which they had been parted.
"Miss Brooke is very ill, Laurie. It is a slow fever, the doctor says. She has been in bed ever since that dreadful scene three days ago when Lord Clive started out to kill you."
"I am very glad I escaped his blood-thirsty lordship," he said, with a faint smile. "But, mother, are they going to let me see her soon?"
"I think they will, for that clever maid of Flower's got back from Boston yesterday with some papers she had stolen from Jewel's trunk, and among them was the long-missing marriage-certificate. Oh, my son, you can not think how glad those dear old people were to find out that Flower was really your wife—and, oh, by the way," with a start, "this little boy, with his funny dress, and solemn eyes, your son, dear, will inherit the title and estates after old Lord Ivon."
"I can not think of that yet, dear mother, my heart is full of my wife."