one ever
insulted me nor you! I humbly thank God that, discredited as I may
have been, my conduct to all was so considerate that no one could
obtrude such a truth upon me. Is it the truth? O father!--I must call
you so! it is the only word I know--is this, at last, one of the
dreadful visions of diseased sleep or of insanity? Who am I? What was
my mother? I can bear it all, for now I have seen why you never loved
me."

Perry, pale as death and still of feeble brain, had arisen as he spoke
and made this imploration with only the eloquence of haggard
forgetfulness. The Judge took Perry's hands and supported him.

"My son, have I not earned the name of father? Yes, I have plucked the
poison-arrow from my heart and sucked its venom. I have taken the
offspring of my injurer and warmed it in my bosom. Every morning when
you arose I was reminded of my dishonor. Every night when we kissed
good-night, I felt, God knows, that I had loved my enemies and done
good to them which injured me!"

The young man, looking up and around in the impotence of expression,
saw the portraits of the dead Whaleys in unbroken lineal
respectability, bending their eyes upon him--the one, the only
impostor of the name!

"Perry," continued the Judge, "I am not wholly guilty of keeping you
blind. I have told you many times that between us was a gap, a rift of
something. I have sometimes said, as your artless caresses, mixed
with the bitter recollection of your origin, almost dispossessed my
reason, that you were 'my demon.'"

"Yes, father; but I was so anxious to love you that I never brooded on
that. I see it all! Every repulse comes back to me now. You have
suffered, indeed, and been the Christian. But I must hear the tale
before I depart."

"Depart! Where?"

"To find my mother, if she lives. To find my name! I cannot bear this
one. It would be deceit."

"Not even the name of My Son?"

"Alas! no. Just as I am I must be known. My putative father, if he
lives, must give me another name."

"Thank God, Perry, he is dead!"

"But not his name. I can make honorable even my--"

"Say it not!" exclaimed the Judge, placing his hand upon Perry's
mouth. "Pure as all your life has been, you shall not degrade it with
such a word. Oh, my son!--my orphan son!--dear faithful prattler
around my feet for all these desolate and haunted years, I have
doubted for your sake every thing--that wedlock was good, that pride
of virtuous origin was wise, that hum