“I do not know,” said the Rector, “I have no information which is not common to all the neighbourhood--yet I beg you to guard against delusion. Lord Winterbourne brought you here while you were an infant--since then you have remained at the Hall--he has owned you, I suppose, as much as a man ever owns an illegitimate child. Pardon me, I am obliged to use the common words. Lord Winterbourne is not a man of extended benevolence, neither is he one to take upon himself the responsibility or blame of another. If you are not his son, why did he bring you here?” Louis raised his face from his hands which had covered it--he was very pale, haggard, almost ghastly. “If you can tell me of any youth--of any child--of any man’s son, whom it was his interest to disgrace and remove out of the way,” said the young man with his parched lips, “I will tell you why I am here.” The Rector could not quite restrain a start of emotion--not for what the youth said, for that was madness to the man of the world--but for the extreme passion, almost despair, in his face. He thought it best to soothe rather than to excite him. “I know nothing more than all the world knows,” said Mr Rivers; “but, though I warn you against delusions, I will not say you are wrong when you are so firmly persuaded that you are right. What do you mean to do in London--can I help you there?” Louis felt with no small pang this giving up of the argument--as if it were useless to discuss anything so visionary--but he roused himself to answer the question: “The first thing I have to do,” he said quickly, “is to maintain my sister and myself.” The Rector bowed again, very solemnly and gravely--perhaps not without a passing thought that the same duty imposed chains more galling than iron upon himself. “That done, I will pursue my inquiries as I can,” said Louis; “you think them vain--but time will prove that. I thank you now, for my sister’s sake, for receiving us--and now we must go on our way.” “Not yet,” said the Rector. “You are without means, of course--what, do you think it a disgrace, that you blush for it?--or would you have me suppose that you had taken money from Lord Winterbourne, while you deny that you are his son? For this once suppose me your friend; I will supply you with what you are certain to need; and you can repay me--oh, with double interest if you please!--only do not go to London unprovided--for that is the maddest method of anticipating a heartbreak; your sister is young, almost a child, tender and delicate--let it be, for her sake.” “Thank you; I will take it as you give it,” said Louis. “I am not so ungenerous as you suppose.”