‘I think you may save yourself trouble on that account. I have not seen him again. When I came back he was gone. They had not waited for me. They left no message. I don’t know where to find him.’
‘Gone?’ she said. ‘Gone——?’
‘Yes, mother. He delivered me from the difficulty, the misery in which I was coming back, with the intention of saying—what it is so hard to say to a man who—may be one’s—father.’ John grew pale, and then grew red. The word was almost impossible to utter, but he brought it forth at last. ‘But he did not wait for my hesitation or difficulties. He relieved me. They were gone without leaving a sign.’
‘Who do you mean by they?’
‘He had a friend,’ John answered, faltering, ‘a friend who is my friend too. An actor, Montressor.’
‘Montressor!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with something like a scream. Then she covered her eyes suddenly with her hand. ‘Oh, what scenes, what scenes that name brings back to me! they were friends, as such men call friendship. They encouraged each other in all kinds of evil. Montressor! and how came he to be a friend of yours?’
‘It is an old story, mother: I daresay you have forgotten. It was entirely by chance. Susie knows. I will make a confession to you,’ he said, with a sudden impulse. ‘I was very unhappy, and full of resentment towards everybody——’
‘Towards me,’ she said, quietly, ‘I remember very well. That was the time when you said I was Emily, and would not have me for your mother.’
She smiled at the boyish petulance, as a mother thus outraged has a right to smile: and perhaps it was natural she should remember it so. But it was not the moment to remind him. He smiled too, but his smile was not of an easy kind.
‘I was altogether wrong,’ he said, ‘I confess it. When I met this man, I called myself—by the name which seemed to come uppermost in that whirl of trouble. I said I was John May.’