Captain Fortescue was a most honourable man, and he felt sometimes as if he were a walking impostor. There had been times when he had suddenly felt it incumbent on him to tell them the truth, and had even been on the very verge of doing so. As they had walked together by the sea, under the blue Italian sky, he had, more than once, been on the point of blurting out the fact that he was the son of a man who had once been a common miner.
He had, however, at the last moment, withheld from making this disclosure; not so much because he was afraid of what they might think of him, or of how they might treat him, but because he had felt that it would be hardly treating his father fairly, were he to reveal what that father had told him in the strictest confidence. If he, by his honest toil, had earned the money to place himself in a position of affluence, and moreover to give his son the education of a gentleman, was it right that that son should publish his father's humble origin to the world?
Thus time had drifted on, and he had moved in the highest circles, and had been received into the best society, and no one knew anything of his father beyond the fact that he lived at Ashcliffe Towers, near Sheffield, had a large estate, and was evidently a very wealthy man.
When, two hours later, the train ran into the large Sheffield station, his thoughts were still pursuing the same unpleasant and difficult course. He called a hansom and was soon driving rapidly through the busy streets and out towards the country beyond. As he went, he wondered again what he should find at his journey's end, and whether his father would come out as usual to welcome him on his arrival. After about half an hour's drive, the cab turned in at a lodge gate, and he could see, through the fir trees in the avenue, the lights in the windows of his home.
An old butler came to the door in answer to the cabman's ring. He had lived with his father for years, and had known him from a boy. Mr. Fortescue objected to keeping many servants; they were only a trouble, he said, and he did not care to have a young jackanapes of a footman to stand and watch him when he ate. Elkington had white hair, and his hand trembled as he took the bag from the driver. He did not speak until the man had driven off, and then he said:
"I'm glad you've come, sir!"
"What's the matter, Elkington? Is my father ill?"
"Very ill, sir," said the old man. "Come into the library, sir; the doctor's upstairs now."
"That bag's too heavy for you, Elkington! It makes you pant: let me take it."
"No, no, sir; I can manage all right. I'm getting a bit short of wind, that's all."