"You cannot mean—surely it cannot be possible that he is the man you refer to—your half-brother!" he cried breathlessly.
"Yes, he, and no other, is the man," was the emphatic response, "only he has found it convenient to drop the name of Wilton."
"But are you sure? Have you met this man who calls himself William F. Temple? Do you know that he is your brother?"
"Yes, I am sure—we have met and recognized each other, greatly to his confusion. I could take my oath as to his identity and that he is the man who married Belle Abbot more than twenty-three years ago, though I am sure he has never dreamed of your existence, for you were born eight months after he had deserted your mother. She called herself by the name of Faxon and named you Clifford, for your grandfather, Abbot. She said you should never be known by the name of Wilton, and as the population of New Haven was constantly changing, and her home was on the outskirts of the city, she hoped to keep your identity a secret and your young life unhampered by any knowledge of the great wrong of which your father had been guilty. She never heard one word from her husband, and she finally came to the conclusion that he must be dead. I also shared that belief, for I was pretty sure that if he was alive and needed money he would make some effort to get his share of his mother's property; but four years ago last summer we suddenly ran across each other on a train between New York and Albany——"
"You did?" sharply interposed Clifford, "and did you tell him of my existence?"
"You may be sure I didn't. I never meant that any one should know that there was any tie of kinship between you and me," replied the squire, with some asperity. "At first Bill pretended that he did not know me, but I very soon brought him down from his high horse and convinced him that I knew my man. He was dressed like a nabob, and told me that he had become rich—he even told me that I was welcome to all that our mother left, and that he should never give me any trouble about his share of it; but I supposed that was a kind of bribe for me to let him alone, and, as I'd come to look upon everything as belonging to me, I concluded to give him a wide berth, rather than to get into an expensive lawsuit over the matter. I never met him again until the day you took your degree at Harvard—bah! I did not mean to let that cat out of the bag!" the man interposed, with a shrug of irritation and flushing hotly.
"Oh! I knew you were there," Clifford quietly returned. "I saw you almost as soon as I entered the hall, and your presence was a great inspiration—I feel I owe you a great deal for it."
"An inspiration!" repeated his companion, wonderingly.
"Yes; for I knew you had come to criticize—to ascertain for yourself if I had been able to work my own way through college and acquit myself creditably, and the knowledge proved a wonderful bracer for me. But you were telling me about your second meeting with Mr. Temple."
"Yes, I ran against him and his whole family just as I was leaving the grounds. They were a stunning party, and their carriage and horses as fine as one would care to see. But it nearly took Bill's breath away to see me—he looked as if he had met a ghost, though neither of us let on that he knew the other," the squire explained.