“Do you mean to say that you would have concealed this from me if you could?” he exclaimed.

“I hope I should always tell the truth, sir, if I was asked,” said Mrs. Goldstraw.  “And I know it is better for me that I should not have a secret of this sort weighing on my mind.  But is it better for you?  What use can it serve now—?”

“What use?  Why, good Lord! if your story is true—­”

“Should I have told it, sir, as I am now situated, if it had not been true?”

“I beg your pardon,” said the wine-merchant.  “You must make allowance for me.  This dreadful discovery is something I can’t realise even yet.  We loved each other so dearly—­I felt so fondly that I was her son.  She died, Mrs. Goldstraw, in my arms—­she died blessing me as only a mother could have blessed me.  And now, after all these years, to be told she was not my mother!  O me, O me!  I don’t know what I am saying!” he cried, as the impulse of self-control under which he had spoken a moment since, flickered, and died out.  “It was not this dreadful grief—­it was something else that I had it in my mind to speak of.  Yes, yes.  You surprised me—­you wounded me just now.  You talked as if you would have hidden this from me, if you could.  Don’t talk in that way again.  It would have been a crime to have hidden it.  You mean well, I know.  I don’t want to distress you—­you are a kind-hearted woman.  But you don’t remember what my position is.  She left me all that I possess, in the firm persuasion that I was her son.  I am not her son.  I have taken the place, I have innocently got the inheritance of another man.  He must be found!  How do I know he is not at this moment in misery, without bread to eat?  He must be found!  My only hope of bearing up against the shock that has fallen on me, is the hope of doing something which she would have approved.  You must know more, Mrs. Goldstraw, than you have told me yet.  Who was the stranger who adopted the child?  You must have heard the lady’s name?”

“I never heard it, sir.  I have never seen her, or heard of her, since.”

“Did she say nothing when she took the child away?  Search your memory.  She must have said something.”

“Only one thing, sir, that I can remember.  It was a miserably bad season, that year; and many of the children were suffering from it.  When she took the baby away, the lady said to me, laughing, ’Don’t be alarmed about his health.  He will be brought up in a better climate than this—­I am going to take him to Switzerland.’”

“To Switzerland?  What part of Switzerland?”

“She didn’t say, sir.”

“Only that faint clue!” said Mr. Wilding.  “And a quarter of a century has passed since the child was taken away!  What am I to do?”