“A ‘_good, and sufficient reason_’ I told you I had,” he returned, very slowly and deliberately, and glancing from one to the other to mark the effect of his words. “Yes, it is; and I think you will both be obliged to acknowledge it when I tell you that _Earle Wayne_, as he calls himself, IS MY OWN SON!” CHAPTER XXXII THE TABLES TURNED “Revenge, at first though sweet, Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.” Earle suddenly reeled at these astounding words, as if some one had struck him a heavy blow. “Mr. Dalton! Sir!” he cried, aghast, and regarding him for the moment in helpless amazement. “Papa!” Editha exclaimed, an expression of utter incredulity upon her face. She really thought that her father was deranged. She believed that he had cherished his bitterness toward Earle until he had become a monomaniac upon that point, and now, under the excitement of the moment, and their defiance of him, he had lost his reason entirely. “Does all this surprise you, my _children_?” Mr. Dalton asked, with a gloating grin at Earle. “It is not to be wondered at,” he went on; “but it is true, nevertheless. Earle Wayne, as he calls himself, though he has no more right to the name than I have, is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh.” Earle was terribly moved by his speech. His breath came labored and heavily, his teeth were locked together, and his hands were clenched until they were fairly livid. He took one fierce stride forward, as if he could have felled the man to the floor, then suddenly stopped, and asked, in low, concentrated tones: “Prove what you have said! Is your real name Dalton?” yet even as he asked the question a cold sweat settled upon his forehead and about his mouth. “Yes; I have always answered to the name of George Sumner Dalton, though for brevity’s sake I dropped the first name many years ago.” “_George Sumner Dalton!_” repeated Earle, mechanically. “Yes, you have it correct. Do you recognize any part of it?” was the mocking reply. “I see, I see,” murmured the young man, pressing his hands upon his temples, and looking as if he was paralyzed with the suddenness of the intelligence. Then all his mother’s sufferings—all the wrongs and disgraces of his own early life suddenly surged over him with overwhelming force, and he turned fiercely upon the man who dared to stand there and taunt him with those cruel facts. “Then _you_ are the man whom I have been looking for for seven long years,” he cried. “_You_ are the wretch who plotted to betray my mother, and you dare stand there and _own_ the dastardly act—you dare acknowledge the deed that makes you a man to be shunned and despised by all true, good men, brands you worse than a second Cain, and makes me loathe you until my very soul is sick, notwithstanding that the same blood may flow in our veins?”