"Perhaps you have guessed the truth. I have a great deal to answer for. I cannot tell you how I have reproached myself. I have always taken an interest in you and in your mother. Even as a schoolboy at Eton this has been the case." "But why?" I asked. "Did you never know--I hoped not, but your mother knew, only I begged of her not to tell you--I am the son of the man whose life your father saved? His name was Chaloner then, but with some property he changed it to the one which I now bear, and I have been called Randolph almost the whole of my life. When my father died he gave me a charge. He said if ever the time came when you or your mother were in difficulties or peril or danger, I was to remember what your gallant father had done for him. He need not have told me, for the deed had always excited my keenest admiration; but I never came across you until that day when, by the merest chance, I was at the house-agents when you came in. I heard your name and I guessed who you were, but I did not dare to look at you then. I felt strangely overpowered. "I went away, but I came back again shortly afterwards, and, forgive me, child, I overheard a great deal of your scheme, and I remembered my father's words and determined to help you. It was I who sought Jane Mullins. Her people had been old retainers of ours, and she had always worshipped the ground on which I walked. I told her exactly what I meant to do, and she helped me straight through at once. The money which smoothed matters with the landlord and enabled you to take the house, was really my money, money which I had inherited from my mother, but which was invested in Australian stocks. At that time these stocks were paying a high dividend, and everything seemed to be going well; but you had not been three months in the boarding-house before the bank in Melbourne which held such a large amount of my money went smash, and I was obliged to go over to secure what was left. The blow was most sudden, and I had no one to help me. I gave Jane Mullins what little money I had left, and went to Australia. I quite hoped I should be back before--before any great trouble came to you. I rescued a large portion of my money, and hoped that everything was all right. Then came the shipwreck, the danger, the awful fight with death in the hospital, the final home-coming, and now--now I find that I shall never see your mother again. What did she think of my long absence, my enforced silence, Westenra? What did she feel about me?" "She always hoped you would come back, and she always loved you," I said slowly. "Did she tell you nothing more?" No colour could come to my face; my heart was too cold, too bitterly cold, too despairing. "She told me something more," I said in a whisper. He bent close to me.