"He said if time could come over again he would have married her, or else not have taken her. He was dying, you see, Isaac, and right and wrong array themselves in very distinct colours then. Anyway, it was too late now, whatever his repentance; and he prayed me and my wife to take the boy and not let it be known for the child's own sake that he was not ours. We both promised; at a moment like that one could not foresee inconveniences that might arise later, and it almost seemed as if we owed the compliance, in gratitude for the bequeathal of the Red Court Farm. He died, and we brought the boy with us to London--he who has been looked upon as your brother Richard. When people here used to say that he was more like his uncle Richard than his father Harry, my wife would glance at me with a smile." "And his mother?" "She died in France shortly afterwards. She had parted with the boy readily, glad to find he would have so good a home. Had she lived, the probabilities are that the secret could not have been kept." "Did you intend to keep it always, father?" "Until my death. Every year as they went on, gave less chance of our disclosing it. When you were all little, my wife and I had many a serious consultation; for the future seemed to be open so some difficulty; but we loved the boy, and neither of us had courage to say, He is not ours; he has no legitimate inheritance. Besides, as your mother would say to me, there was always our promise. It must have been disclosed at my death, at least to Richard, to explain why you, and not he, came into the Red Court." "Perhaps his father, my uncle Richard, expected it would be left to him?" "No, Isaac. We talked of that. Only in the event of my having no children of my own would the property have become his. Richard will take his share as one of my younger children. _You_ are the eldest. I shall at once settle this money upon him; you have read to that effect in the letter; so that he will have enough for comfort whatever part of the world he may choose to remain in." Isaac mechanically cast his eyes on the letter, still in his hand. "I have disclosed these facts to him now for his own comfort," resumed Mr. Thornycroft. "It may bring him a ray of it to find Cyril was not his brother." Isaac thought it would. He folded the letter and returned it to his father. "There is one thing I wished to ask you, sir, and I may as well ask it now. You do not, I presume, think of running more cargoes." "Never again," said Mr. Thornycroft. "Richard was the right hand of it, and he is gone. That's over for ever. But for him it would have been given up before. And there's Kyne besides." Isaac nodded, glad to have the matter set at rest. "May I tell Mary Anne what you have disclosed to me?" "Yes, but no one else. She may be glad to hear Richard is not her brother."