“I know you would; but you remember Mrs. Humdrum?  Yes, I see you do.  I told her everything; it was she who saved me.  We thought of you, but she saw that it would not do.  As I was to marry Mr. Strong, the more you were lost sight of the better, but with George ever with me I have not been able to forget you.  I might have been very happy with you, but I could not have been happier than I have been ever since that short dreadful time was over.  George must tell you the rest.  I cannot do so.  All is well.  I love my husband with my whole heart and soul, and he loves me with his.  As between him and me, he knows everything; George is his son, not yours; we have settled it so, though we both know otherwise; as between you and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in pretending that you are not George’s father.  I have said all I need say.  Now, tell me what I asked you—­Why are you here?”

“I fear,” said my father, set at rest by the sweetness of Yram’s voice and manner—­he told me he had never seen any one to compare with her except my mother—­“I fear, to do as much harm now as I did before, and with as little wish to do any harm at all.”

He then told her all that the reader knows, and explained how he had thought he could have gone about the country as a peasant, and seen how she herself had fared, without her, or any one, even suspecting that he was in the country.

“You say your wife is dead, and that she left you with a son—­is he like George?”

“In mind and disposition, wonderfully; in appearance, no; he is dark and takes after his mother, and though he is handsome, he is not so good-looking as George.”

“No one,” said George’s mother, “ever was, or ever will be, and he is as good as he looks.”

“I should not have believed you if you had said he was not.”

“That is right.  I am glad you are proud of him.  He irradiates the lives of every one of us.”

“And the mere knowledge that he exists will irradiate the rest of mine.”

“Long may it do so.  Let us now talk about this morning—­did you mean to declare yourself?”

“I do not know what I meant; what I most cared about was the doing what I thought George would wish to see his father do.”

“You did that; but he says he told you not to say who you were.”

“So he did, but I knew what he would think right.  He was uppermost in my thoughts all the time.”

Yram smiled, and said, “George is a dangerous person; you were both of you very foolish; one as bad as the other.”

“I do not know.  I do not know anything.  It is beyond me; but I am at peace about it, and hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before the Mayor.”

“I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.  George tells me you have promised him to be good and to do as we bid you.”

“So I will; but he will not tell me to say that I am not what I am.”