"Louise," he said, going up to her and taking her hand, while, at the same time, he kissed her slightly on the cheek, "I am glad to see that you can come forth again. I trust you are more at ease." Then, turning to me, he gazed down and said, "So, this is your child," and he placed his hand upon my head. As he did so, and after I had made my bow, I gazed at him and saw a tall gentleman of over sixty years of age, I should suppose, very lean and very pale, clad in a complete suit of black velvet and with but little lace at either breast or wrists. The gravity of his face was extreme, though he looked not unkind; and, truly, his manner had not been so up to now. "Well," he said, when he had motioned me to a seat and was himself standing before us with his back to the huge fire that roared up the chimney, "well, so you claim to be the present Viscount St. Amande and my heir when it pleases God to take me. And you, Louise," turning to her, "proclaim that he is so?" "Can a mother not know her own child, Charles, or have so hard a heart as not to wish to see him enjoy his own?" "Humph! It hath been done. My Lady Macclesfield, though 'tis true she earned the contempt of all, ever called her son, the wretched man, Savage, an impostor; and endeavoured to work his ruin, in which desire she came at last near to success, since this very month he has stood at the Old Bailey on a charge of murder. Yet, Louise, thou art not as she was." "Nay, God forbid! The wicked wanton! Yet I know not--there are those who have vilified me for their own wicked ends and said the worst that scoundrels can say of any woman. But, Charles, you are honest and have ever held a character for justice amongst men, and, although you loved not my uncle nor my kin, you would not think evil of me. You could not, oh! you could not!" He looked down gravely at her, but still again with kindness in his eyes, and then he said: "No, no. Never, Louise, never. You were always too good and true, too fond of the unhappy man to have been aught but faithful. And, although I opposed his marriage with you, it was never because of your own self but because of your uncle's principles. Had he had his way, which I thank God was not permitted, he would have brought back the false-hearted, grieving Stuarts to the throne; he would have cursed his country and its laws and religion. But for you, Louise, for you, child, I never had aught of distrust, but only pity deep and infinite that you should wed with such a poor thing as my own dead kinsman and heir, this lad's father." "God bless you," said she, seizing his hand with her well one and kissing it ere he could draw it away, "God bless you for your words as I bless Him for having raised you up to be even as a father to the fatherless--to my poor fatherless boy. And, Charles, if those whom you loved so well, your own wife and child, had not been taken from you, I would pray night and day for them as I pray for you."