Page 685 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

effort.
Francis Wade gasped. ‘If he is the man! It is true—I have
sometimes thought—Oh, Ellinor, can it be that we have
been deceived?’
She came to him and leant upon him for support, as she
had leant upon her son in the garden where they now stood,
nineteen years ago. ‘I do not know, I am afraid to think. But
between Richard and myself is a secret—a shameful secret,
Frank, known to no other living person. If the man who
threatens me does not know that secret, he is not my son. If
he does know it——‘
‘Well, in Heaven’s name, what then?’
‘He knows that he has neither part nor lot in the fortune
of the man who was my husband.’
‘Ellinor, you terrify me. What does this mean?’
‘I will tell you if there be need to do so,’ said the unhappy
lady. ‘But I cannot now. I never meant to speak of it again,
even to him. Consider that it is hard to break a silence of
nearly twenty years. Write to this man, and tell him that
before I receive his wife, I wish to see him alone. No—do
not let him come here until the truth be known. I will go
to him.’
It was with some trepidation that Mr. Richard, sitting
with his wife on the afternoon of the 3rd May, 1846, awaited
the arrival of his mother. He had been very nervous and un-
strung for some days past, and the prospect of the coming
interview was, for some reason he could not explain to him-
self, weighty with fears. ‘What does she want to come alone
for? And what can she have to say?’ he asked himself. ‘She

For the Term of His Natural Life