"At last," resumed the steward, "two years ago, a letter came from her to my lord; she was a nun in some convent (in Italy I think) to which she had, at the time of her disappearance, secretly retired. The letter was written on her death-bed, and so affectingly, I suppose, that even my stern lord was in tears for several days after he received it. But the principal passage in it was relative to her son: it assured my lord (for so with his own lips he told me just before he died, some months ago) that Master Clinton was in truth his son, and that it was not till she had been tempted many years after her marriage that she had fallen; she implored my lord to believe this 'on the word of one for whom earth and earth's objects were no more;' those were her words." "Six months ago, when my lord lay on the bed from which he never rose, he called me to him and said, "Wardour, you have always been the faithful servant of our house, and warmly attached to my second son; tell my poor boy, if ever you see him, that I did at last open my eyes to my error and acknowledge him as my child; tell him that I have desired his brother (who was then, sir, kneeling by my lord's side), as he values my blessing, to seek him out and repair the wrong I have done him; and add that my best comfort in death was the hope of his forgiveness." "Did he, did he say that?" exclaimed Clarence, who had been violently agitated during the latter part of this recital, and now sprang from his seat. "My father, my father! would that I had borne with thee more! mine, mine was the fault; from thee should have come the forgiveness!" The old steward sat silent and aghast. At that instant his wife entered, with a message of chiding at the lateness of the hour upon her lip, but she started back when she saw Clarence's profile, as he stood leaning against the wall. "Good heavens!" cried she, "is it, is it,--yes, it is my young master, my own foster-son!" Rightly had Clarence conjectured, when he had shunned her presence. Years had indeed wrought a change in his figure and face; acquaintance, servant, friend, relation,--the remembrance of his features had passed from all: but she who had nursed him as an infant on her lap and fed him from her breast, she who had joined the devotion of clanship to the fondness of a mother, knew him at a glance. "Yes," cried he, as he threw himself into her withered and aged arms, "it is I, the child you reared, come, after many years, to find too late, when a father is no more, that he had a right to a father's home." CHAPTER LXXI. Let us go in, And charge us there upon inter'gatories.--SHAKSPEARE. "But did not any one recognize you in your change of name?" said the old foster-mother, looking fondly upon Clarence, as he sat the next morning by her side. "How could any one forget so winsome a face who had once seen it?"