"Did no sense of responsibility make you feel that you ought to make some provision for the wife you had left after you became so prosperous?" Clifford here inquired.
"Well," replied Mr. Temple, with a restless movement, "I supposed she had gone back to her own folks, and, as Mr. Abbot was doing a good business when she left home, I imagined she would be well provided for, while I wanted to keep dark. I was perfectly willing that all my old acquaintances in the East should believe me dead. I knew my mother was dead, for I had read a record of it, having ordered a New Haven paper sent to a certain address after I went to San Francisco, and there was nobody else in that region that I cared anything about. Later, I became interested in politics, made myself popular, and served two terms as Mayor of the city.
"Then"—he paused and swallowed hard, while his face became drawn and pinched with pain—"I met my present wife, who was a wealthy widow with one son, visiting some friends in the city, and I fell really in love for the first time in my life, and—and my affection for her has strengthened with every passing year. You doubtless wonder how I dared to marry her without procuring a divorce from Belle. I admit it was a bold and risky thing to do; but I knew that I had no grounds for a divorce—that if I should attempt such a measure, very likely I should fail, for I felt very sure that Alf must hate me to that extent that he would spare nothing to thwart any plan of that kind. I told myself that I was practically dead to all who had known me earlier in life—that it would be better for me not to arouse sleeping dogs, who would be likely to blight all the dearest hopes of my life; the continent was between us, and as I had changed my name, it seemed more than probable that I could live out my life without the fear of being molested by any one.
"So I boldly won the woman I loved and resolutely silenced every fear for the future. In less than a year my little daughter, Minnie, was born, and then for a while I confess I experienced some uneasiness on her account; but a year later that all vanished when one day I read in my New Haven paper of the death of Mrs. W. F. T. Wilton, and knew that at last I was free. I told myself that now I could enjoy life to the utmost—my past was a sealed book, and the future was bright with unlimited wealth, a beautiful wife, a lovely child. I felt as if I had been released from a terrible bondage, and lived accordingly. We had the entrée of the best society, and there was even some talk of making me governor of the State. An almost ideal existence was ours, and yet, even then, occasionally there would be forced upon my consciousness the fact that my wife had no legal right to the position she occupied and that my idolized child was——"
"Oh, I beg you will not speak like that of that innocent child!" Clifford here broke forth, with a note of keen pain in his tones. "It is wholly unnecessary to rehearse all that to me."
"Yes, yes, I suppose it is," Mr. Temple assented, as he shook himself roughly as if arousing from a disagreeable dream, "and I hardly know why I have allowed myself to go so into details. Well, the greatest mistake of my life was made when I yielded to Mrs. Temple's persuasions to come East and settle, so that her son could be educated at Harvard—and, by the way, it seemed like the mockery of fate that you two should have been in the same class. At first I objected to the plan, for I, of course, felt safer to be three thousand miles from the scenes of my youthful escapades, and I was still ambitious for political honors, in spite of the fact that my own party had been defeated in the last elections; but her heart was so set on the project that I finally gave up the point. We accordingly went to Boston, and a little later I purchased a fine estate in Brookline, which has been our home ever since.
"Mind you, during all this time I had never dreamed of your existence. My first intimation of the fact that I had a son was that morning when I sought you to express my gratitude to you for having saved the life of my little daughter. The moment I looked into your eyes I was conscious that there was something strangely familiar about you, and when you told me that your name was Clifford Faxon, it seemed as if the earth was slipping out from underneath me. I knew the truth then, for your mother had often said that if she ever had a son she would name him Clifford, for her father; and I understood that she had refrained from giving you your true surname because she wished to keep from you the knowledge of who your father was.
"I have learned all about her life after she returned to New Haven, and also her history from Squire Talford. I know what you have had to meet and overcome, and that you have steadily and resolutely risen above every obstacle. I realize the fact that you are a young man, morally and intellectually, of whom any man might feel proud as a son, and yet, situated as I am, you can readily see that such a recognition would entail——"
"I beg that you will give yourself no uneasiness, sir; I have no desire to recognize such a tie, nor to have any one else informed of the fact," Clifford quietly interposed.
Mr. Temple changed color, yet at the same time the look of intense anxiety which his face had worn hitherto faded out and he drew a breath of relief.