“Now go ahead, Blake, and end my suspense. I’ve seen for some time that you’ve been keeping something back from me. I don’t know what it is, but it’s something about my father. And I appreciate why you’re doing it. You want to spare my feelings.”
“That’s it!” cried Blake, eagerly, glad of any chance to put off what he regarded as a most unpleasant duty. “It is for your sake, Joe, that I have been keeping silent, and I wish you would go on letting me do so. Believe me, if I thought it well for you to know I’d tell you.”
“Is it—is it that he isn’t my father, after all?” faltered the lad, following a silence in which all sound of pursuit had died away. The boys felt that they were safe now. “Do you mean to say, Blake, that this man whom I’ve traced after such hard work, isn’t any relation to me—haven’t I any folks, after all?”
“No, Joe, it isn’t that at all. He’s your father, as far as I know, and I will admit there is some secret about him. But I’d rather not tell you.”
“I want to know it,” insisted Joe, firmly.
“If you’ll only wait,” went on his chum, “it may all be explained when—when he comes back. Then there won’t be any need of a secret. Better wait, Joe.”
“No, I’ve got to hear it right away. If it’s any disgrace—and it must be, or you’d be willing to tell me—if it’s any disgrace, it’s my duty to stand up for my father when he isn’t here. I’m his son, and I have a right to know about it, and protect his name as much as I can. Tell me, Blake.”
The other hesitated a moment. If he told, it would be, he felt, breaking his promise made to the lighthouse keeper, but then the promise was not so sacred that it could not be broken. It was given under a sort of discretion, and Blake knew that he would be allowed to reveal what had been said if he felt that it was best to do so. The time now seemed to have come to do this. He took a sudden resolve.
“All right, Joe,” he said, “I’ll tell you. There is a secret about your father. I suppose you know what sort of men those were that we just got away from?” and he nodded in the direction of the hill down which they had raced.
“I’ve been puzzling my head about them, Blake,” came the answer, “and all I can say is that they must be either men who are experimenting with a new kind of light, or else they are—wreckers!”