"My husband never had the least suspicion. The boy's real nature, which is selfish and callous and heartless, did not reveal itself to him. To me it was, almost from the outset, painfully apparent. He is so entirely, in every respect, the opposite of his supposed father, that I have sometimes trembled lest a suspicion should arise. For my own part, I confess that I have never felt the least tenderness or affection for the boy. It has been a continual pain to me that I had to pretend any. So far as that is concerned, I shall be much relieved when I have to pretend no more. Whatever steps may be taken by his real mother, they will at least rid me of a continual and living reproach. I do not know how much affection and gratitude his real mother may expect from such a son in return for depriving him of his family and his position, and exchanging his cousins in the House of Lords for relations with the gutter. I wish her, however, joy and happiness from his love and gratitude." "Molly dear," said Alice, "the woman confesses she took the child and passed it off upon the world for her own. What do you say now, doctor?" "If necessary, I am ready to acknowledge publicly that Lady Woodroffe is the person who bought your child. However, when you came to me about it, I did not know that fact. I found it out afterwards by a remarkable chance. But she confesses, which is all that you desire." "She confesses! Now--at last! Oh, Molly, I shall get back the boy! He will be my own son again--not that horrible woman's son any more! Oh, my own son! my own son!" "The other mother," the doctor murmured. Molly heard him, but understood not what he meant. "Will you, dear madam, read the latter part of the document once more, that part of it beginning, 'My husband never had any suspicion.' Perhaps Miss Molly will read it aloud." Molly did so. As she read it she understood the meaning of these words, "the other mother." She thought of Humphrey, with his cold disdainful eyes, his shrinking from display, his pride of birth, his contempt of the common herd, and of this warm motherly heart, natural and spontaneous, careless of form and reticence, which was waiting for him, and her heart sank for pity. The sham mother, glad at last to get rid of the pretence; her own lover Dick, eager to pull down the pretender, and full of revenge; the pretender himself maddened with rage and shame; and the poor mother longing in vain for one word of tenderness and kindness. Molly's heart sank low with pity. What tenderness, what kindness, would Humphrey have for the mother who had come to deprive him of everything that he valued?