The course to be pursued in his investigation became the next question. Two were pointed out in the letter itself; but from the first, that of applying to his father, he shrank with irresistible repugnance. It was not alone that De Vaux, as is common--we might almost say universal--among men, possessed more physical than moral courage; that he feared the fierce and angry mood of his father, irritated as he had been by late opposition, and loved not to venture upon a discussion with him, which would rouse every dark and stormy passion into fiery activity; but he feared himself also: he feared that anguish and anger, and the haughty irritation with which he was sure to be encountered, might make him forget himself, and say words that no after-sorrow could recall. There might still be a doubt, too, upon even the very subject of his fears, and he felt that were those fears unfounded, his father might justly look upon it as little better than a gross personal insult, were he asked if he had passed his illegitimate son upon the world as legitimate, and promoted his union with the heiress of a large fortune, under the pretence of his being heir to an honourable name and great possessions. De Vaux might believe that such conduct was not impossible; he might also think that his father was not actuated in so doing by the mean and sordid views which, at first sight, seem the only motives assignable for such behaviour. Various circumstances might have occurred, in earlier years, to make his father acknowledge an unreal marriage with his mother; considerations for her feelings, or for his own respectability, might be among the rest. Once having said so, and spoken of himself as of a legitimate child, Edward de Vaux knew well that his father's proud and reserved nature might have made him ever after silent upon the subject, till explanation became almost impossible; and the deceit he had practised or permitted might have been rather the result of haughty reserve than of cunning artifice. De Vaux felt that, however, ere he presumed to insinuate to his father a bare suspicion of his having committed such an act, he must have much better information and clearer proof to justify the charge. When such evidence was once obtained, he might communicate the discovery he had made to Lord Dewry by letter, and thus avoid that painful collision which a personal discussion of the matter must induce; or, if he found that the evidence was faulty or inconclusive; that there was motive for suspicion against the person who tendered it, or that the whole was an interested calumny, he might lay it before his father, as an affair which required him to investigate the assertions, and punish the authors of them.