"Rich!--rich! Who cares for riches? I am dishonoured for the rest of my life. I have no right to the name I bear. You have deceived and tricked me with your lies, leading me to believe that my birth at least was without dishonour, and now--now, I find my life has been one long lie. Do you think money will ever repay me for the stain on my birth. I declare to God that I would willingly become the pauper I was if I could only regain my self-respect with my poverty. Look at me all of you. I am rich! young, and a bastard." With a cry of passionate anger he rushed from the room, and with an answering cry of anguish Patience Allerby fell fainting on the floor. CHAPTER XXVIII. THE BITTERNESS OF DEATH. We call Death cruel, but death ends all strife, Dishonour turns to gall the sweetest life. To say that those who had assembled in the drawing-room of the Grange to hear the will read were astonished at the extraordinary disclosures they had heard, would give but a faint idea of the amazement they felt. That the squire should have left his large fortune to a son of whom no one had ever heard was most remarkable, but that the son in question should turn out to be Reginald Blake was almost beyond belief. Still, after examining all the evidences of the fact, Mr. Bolby came to the conclusion that there could be no doubt as to the identity of the young man. According to the story told by Patience Allerby, who was well known to be the nurse of the boy, he had been born at Chelsea, London, six months after Fanny Blake's arrival there, and had been called by his mother's name. On bringing him down to the village, Randal Garsworth, no doubt dreading the scandal, refused to recognise his son, but agreed to pay for his keep. Patience, therefore, had done the best she could under the circumstances, and had placed the boy with Dr. Larcher, telling him that his parents were dead, thus giving him at least the fiction of an honourable birth. It had been a lie, no doubt, still it was a lie the nobility of which there was no denying, and one which would hardly be set down by the Recording Angel.