"Yes; she saw an advertisement in a London paper calling upon Vyking to take charge of the boy he had left twelve years before. Now, Vyking, the valet, had been transported for house-breaking long before that, and my mother answered the advertisement. There could be no doubt the child was the child Vyking had taken charge of--Sir Noel Thetford's rightful heir. My mother left him with the painter, Legard, with whom he had grew up, whose name he took, and he is now at Thetford Towers." "I thought the likeness meant something," muttered the colonel; "his paternity is plainly enough written in his face. And so," raising his voice, "Mrs. Weymore recognized her son. Really, your story runs like a melodrama, where the hero turns out to be a duke and his mother knows the strawberry mark on his arm. Well, sir, if Mrs. Weymore is Sir Noel's rightful widow, and Guy Legard his rightful son and heir--pray what are you?" The colorless face of the young man turned dark-red for an instant, then whiter than before. "My, mother was as truly and really Sir Noel's wife as women can be the wife of man in the sight of Heaven. The crime was his; the shame and suffering hers; the atonement mine. Sir Noel's elder son shall be Sir Noel's heir--I will play usurper no longer. To-morrow I leave St. Gosport; the day after, England--never, perhaps, to return." "You are mad," Col. Jocyln said, turning very pale; "you do not mean it." "I am not mad, and I do mean it. I may be unfortunate; but, I pray God, never a villain! Right is right; my brother Guy is the rightful heir--not I!" "And Aileen?" Col. Jocyln's face turned dark and rigid as iron as he spoke his daughter's name. Rupert Thetford turned away his changing face, quite ghastly now. "It shall be as she says. Aileen is too noble and just herself not to honor me for doing right." "It shall be as I say," returned Col. Jocyln, with a voice that rang and an eye that flashed. "My daughter comes of a proud and stainless race, and never shall she mate with one less stainless. Hear me out, young man. It won't do to fire up--plain words are best suited to a plain case. All that has passed betwixt you and Miss Jocyln must be as if it had never been. The heir of Thetford Towers, honorably born, I consented she should marry; but, dearly as I love her, I would see her dead at my feet before she should mate with one who was nameless and impoverished. You said just now the atonement was yours--you said right; go, and never return." He pointed to the door; the young man, stonily still, took his hat. "Will you not permit your daughter, Col. Jocyln, to speak for herself?" he said, at the door. "No, sir. I know my daughter--my proud, high-spirited Aileen--and my answer is hers. I wish you good-night." He swung round abruptly, turning his back upon his visitor. Rupert Thetford, without one word, turned and walked out of the house.