Amos Palmer was like one electrified upon hearing this. He sat erect, and stared with wondering eyes at his companion, and began to tremble violently.
"My son! my son!" he cried, in quavering tones. "Oh, if you can tell me anything—if you can tell me that he—lives," the word was scarcely audible, "you will put new life into me."
"Tell me his full name, if you please," said Doctor Wesselhoff, who was scarcely less excited than the trembling man before him.
"Raymond Palmer."
"Describe him to me."
Amos Palmer gave him a minute description of the young man as he appeared on the day that he had been trapped into the physician's house, even to the clothing which he had worn, and the doctor was at last convinced that, all unwittingly, he had assisted in the perpetration of a double crime.
"Yes," he said, when the eager father had concluded, and feeling that he must at once relieve the terrible suspense under which his companion was laboring; "your son lives, and is longing to see his father."
"Oh, then, I have nothing more to wish for—the world will be bright to me once more, for he was my all, Doctor Wesselhoff—my last, and best beloved. I have laid six children in the grave, and all my hopes were centered in Ray. My boy! my boy! I am content to know that you live—that you are not lost to me!"
The over-wrought man broke down utterly at this point, bowed his face upon his hands, and sobbed almost convulsively.
Doctor Wesselhoff was also greatly moved at the sight of his emotion, but as soon as he could control himself sufficiently, he remarked: