“And he––he knows it? Not?”
“He knows it well. I told him it was there I left my son––my little son––but he would say nothing. I was not even sure he knew the place until these letters came to me. He has as yet written me no word, only the message he sent me in his letter to you––that he will some time write me.” Then Larry took Betty’s letter from his pocket and turned it over and over, sadly. “This letter tells me more than all else, but it sets me strangely adrift in my thoughts. It’s not at all like what I had thought it might be.”
Amalia leaned forward eagerly. “Oh, tell me more––a little, what you thought might be.”
“This letter has added more to the heartache than all else that could be. Either Harry King is my son––Richard Kildene––or he is the son of the man who hated me and brought me sorrow. There you see the reason he would tell me nothing. He could not.”
“But how is it that you do not know your own son? It is so strange.”
Larry’s eyes filled as he looked off over the arid plains. 443 “It’s a long story––that. I told it to him once to try to stir his heart toward me, but it was of no use, and I’ll not tell it now––but this. I’d never looked on my boy since I held him in my arms––a heartbroken man––until he came to me there––that is, if he were he. But if Harry King is my son, then he is all the more a liar and a coward––if the claim against him is true. I can’t have it so.”
“It is not so. He is no liar and no coward.” Amalia spoke with finality.
“I tell you if he is not my son, then he is the son of the man who hated me––but even that man will not own him as his son. The little girl who wrote this letter to me––she pleads with me to come on and set them all right: but even she who loved him––who has loved him, can urge no proof beyond her own consciousness, as to his identity; it is beyond my understanding.”
“The little girl––she––she has loved your son––she has loved Harry––Harry King? Whom has she loved?” Amalia only breathed the question.
“She has not said. I only read between the lines.”