What was the reason that his mother had always been so reticent upon the subject. She would never talk with him about his father or her early life, and always appeared so distressed and excited whenever he questioned her that he was forced to desist.
Once, however, she had told him, and only a short time before she died, that if she should be taken from him before he was eighteen years of age, he might open a certain box, which she had always kept locked, and read some letters and papers which he would find in it.
But when that time came—when, after his wild grief over his irreparable loss was somewhat spent, he went to look for these papers, they were gone—the box was empty.
Whether she had shrunk from having him see them and learn of some great sorrow—perhaps shame—that had evidently preyed upon her mind for years, and had destroyed them, or whether they had been stolen from her, he could have no means of knowing.
Evidently Squire Talford was, in a measure, posted upon certain facts connected with the early life of both his father and mother, and it was just as evident that he intended to keep him in the dark regarding them; whether because they were of any real importance, or because he simply wished to torment him because of his avowed hatred, he could not tell.
What rankled most bitterly in his heart was the man’s taunt that it would be better for his peace of mind if he was not too inquisitive.
Clifford was extremely proud and sensitive, and it galled him almost beyond endurance to have it insinuated that there might be some stigma resting upon his birth and upon his dear mother’s honor.
But no; he did not believe that could be possible, and he resented the suspicion as soon as it took form in his thought, for he felt sure that his pure, gentle, and refined mother had never knowingly done wrong. If she had been deceived, the sin was not hers, but another’s.
He sat in his room that night for a long time meditating upon these things, but growing more wretched and perplexed the more he considered them.
“Well, I can help nothing,” he said, at last, throwing back his head with an air of conscious rectitude; “I am what I am; I can gather nothing definite from Squire Talford’s miserable insinuations. I may not even be entitled to the name I bear, but I know that I will make it one that a son of mine—if I should ever have one—will be proud to own.”