"
"And--my mother?" Granville Kelmscott burst out, in a very tremulous
voice. The question was almost more than a man dare ask. But he
asked it in the first bitterness of a terrible awakening.
"Your mother," Colonel Kelmscott answered, lifting his head once
more, with a terrible effort, and looking his son point-blank in
the face--"your mother is just what I have always called her--my
lawful wife--Lady Emily Kelmscott. The mother of these lads, to
whom I was also once duly married, died before my marriage with my
present wife--thank God I can say so. I may have acted foolishly,
cruelly, criminally; but at least I never acted quite so basely
and so ill as you impute to me, Granville."
"Thank Heaven for that," his son answered fervently, with one hand
on his breast, drawing a deep sigh as he spoke. "You're my father,
sir, and it isn't for me to reproach you; but if you had only done
THAT--oh, my mother! my mother! I don't know, sir, I'm sure, how
I could ever have forgiven you; I don't know how I could ever have
kept my hands off you."
Colonel Kelmscott straightened himself up, and looked hard at his
son. A terrible pathos gleamed in his proud brown eyes. His white
moustache had more dignity than ever.
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