"No, sir," said Derrick.
Mr. Clendon turned his eyes to Mr. Jacobs, but Derrick felt that the old
man was addressing him.
"The lady who writes this letter, Mr. Jacobs, the Donna Elvira of whom
you have spoken, is--my wife. We have been separated for years. The
cause? Nothing that can cast a shadow of dishonour on her. I was
wandering in South America when I met her; we fell in love, were married
in haste. I was then a headstrong, hot-tempered, unreasonable youth;
she--well, she was Spanish, and with a temper and disposition that
matched mine. After many quarrels, we parted in anger. I went my way, a
wild, desperate way; needless to tell you whither such a way leads.
Wrecked in character and prospects, I decided to be quit of the world. I
had thought of suicide--but God held my hand. Suffice it that I
disappeared, that I concocted a false report of my death, and so made
room for my younger brother, Talbot, to take the place in the world
which I had rendered myself unfit to fill."
There was a pause, during which the old man strove for composure.
Derrick began to tremble. He remembered Donna Elvira's strange
tenderness to him, his strange tenderness towards her; and something
vague and nebulous was growing out of the Marquess's words, a hope that,
in its intensity, was more painful than joyous.
"I did not know," went on the Marquess in a lower voice, and with
obvious difficulty, "that, when I left my wife, she was about to become
a mother. I did not know that a child was born to me--a son. If I had
known--well, the whole course of my life would have been altered from
that moment. I should have gone back to her, should have claimed my
child; perhaps it is because she knew that I should have done so that
she concealed the fact from me. Be that as it may, I was kept in
ignorance until this moment; and even now, she does not tell me,
but--her son."
He raised his eyes to Derrick with something in them that made Derrick's
heart leap, the tears spring to his eyes.
"Yes; you are my son," said Mr. Clendon, and he held out his hand.
Derrick, moving as if in a dream, took the thin hand and grasped it in
both of his.
"Oh, is it true?" was all he could say, huskily.
"It is quite true," said Mr. Clendon. "The certificates are enclosed;
there is a minute account of the way in which your mother placed you in
the charge of these people; there are even periodical receipts for the
sums she paid for your maintenance. As to your identity----"