For many minutes Ralph stood, like one in a dream, holding the slip of paper tightly in his grasp. Then there came upon him, not suddenly, but very gently and sweetly, as the morning sunlight breaks into a western valley, the broad assurance that he was Robert Burnham's son. Here was the declaration of that fact over the man's own signature. That was enough; there was no need for him to question the writer's sources of knowledge. Robert Burnham had been his ideal of truth and honor; he would have believed his lightest word against the solemn asseveration of thousands. The flimsy lie coined by Rhyming Joe no longer had place in his mind. He cared nothing now for the weakness of Sharpman, for the cunning of Craft, for the verdict of the jury, for the judgment of the court; he _knew_, at last, that he was Robert Burnham's son, and no power on earth could have shaken that belief by the breadth of a single hair. The scene on the descending carriage the day his father died came back into his mind. He thought how the man had grasped his hands, crying, in a voice deep and earnest with conviction:-- "Ralph! Ralph! I have found you!" He had not understood it then; he knew now what it meant. He raised the paper to the level of his eyes, and read, again and again, the convincing words:-- "Do not allow any one to persuade you that this boy is not our son. I _know_ he is." Then Ralph felt again that honest pride in his blood and in his name, and that high ambition to be worthy of his parentage, that had inspired him in the days gone by. Again he looked forward into the bright future, to the large fulfilment of all his hopes and desires, to learning, culture, influence, the power to do good; above all, to the sweetness of a life with his own mother, in the home where he had spent one beautiful day. He had drawn himself to his full height; every muscle was tense, his head was erect with proud knowledge, high hope flashed from his eyes, gladness dwelt in every feature of his face. Then, suddenly, the light went out from his countenance, and the old look of pain came back there. His face had changed with his changing thought as it did that day in the court-room at Wilkesbarre. The fact of his imprisonment had returned into his mind, and for the moment it overcame him. He sat down on a jutting rock to consider it. Of what use was it to be Robert Burnham's son, with two hundred feet of solid rock between him and the outside world, and the only passage through it blocked with burned and broken timbers? For a time despondency darkened his mind and despair sat heavily upon him. He even wished that the joy of this new knowledge had not come to him. It made the depth of his present misfortune seem so much greater.