“Pardon me, Sir Miles. Pardon me, I am half distraught. And you loved my mother, and—and—he repented. Why was not I told of this before? And yet,” he added, again pausing, as if some fresh suspicion struck him, “and yet how is this? I heard you speak yester even to my uncle, of wrongs done—done by yourself to him, and of a woman’s death—that woman, therefore, was not, could not have been my mother. Who, then, was she?”
“His mother,” replied Sir Miles St. Aubyn, calmly, but sadly, pointing to the bed on which Jasper lay sleeping tranquilly and all unconsciously of the strange revelations which were going on around him. “If my friend robbed me of William Allan’s sister, so I won from William Allan, in after days, her who owned his affection; but with this difference, that she I won never returned your uncle’s love from the beginning, and that I never betrayed his confidence. If I were the winner, it was in fair and loyal strife, and though it has been, as I learned for the first time last night, a sore burthen on your uncle’s heart, it has been none on my conscience; my withers are unwrung.”
“I believe it, sir; from my soul, I believe it,” cried the young man, enthusiastically, “for, on my life, I think you are all honor and nobility. But tell me, tell me now, if you love, if you pity me—as you should do for my mother’s sake—who slew my father?”
“I have sworn,” answered the cavalier, “I have sworn never to reveal that to mortal man; and if I had not sworn, to you I could not reveal it; for, if I judge aright, you would hold yourself bound to—”
“Avenge it!” exclaimed the youth, fiercely, interrupting him; “ay, were it at my soul’s purchase—since he repented.”
“He did repent, Durzil; nay, more, he died, desiring only that he could repair the wrong he had done you, regretting only that he could not give you his name and his inheritance, as he did give you his dying blessing, and your mother his last thought, his last word in this world.”
“Did she know this?”
“Durzil, I cannot answer you; for within a few days after your father’s death, I left England for the Low Countries, and returned not until many a year had passed into the bygone eternity. When I did return, the sorrows of Alicia Allan were at an end forever; and though I then made all inquiries in all quarters, I could learn nothing of your uncle or yourself, nor ever have heard of you any more until last night, when we were all so singularly brought together.”
“I ought to have known this; I would, I would to God that I had known it. My life had been less wild, then, less turbulent, less stormy. My spirit had not then burned with so rash a recklessness. It was the sense of wrong, of bitter and unmerited wrong done in past times, of cold and undeserved scorn heaped on me in the present, as the bastard—the child of infamy and shame! that goaded me into so hot action. But it is done now, it is done, and cannot be amended. The world it is which has made me what I am—let the world look to it—let the world enjoy the work of its hands.”
“There is nothing, Durzil,” said the old man, solemnly, “nothing but death that cannot be amended. Undone things may not be, but all may be amended, by God’s good grace to aid us.”