ning for a moment to the hopes which I had formed of being of some
service to Michael, I have only to say that they were at once destroyed,
when I heard of the death by drowning of the man to whom the evidence
pointed as his father. The prospect looked equally barren when I thought
of the miserable mother. That she should openly acknowledge her son
in her position was perhaps not to be expected of any woman. Had she
courage enough, or, in plainer words, heart enough to acknowledge him
privately?

I called to mind again some of the apparent caprices and contradictions
in Lady Claudia's conduct, on the memorable day when Michael had
presented himself to fill the vacant place. Look back with me to the
record of what she said and did on that occasion, by the light of your
present knowledge, and you will see that his likeness to his father must
have struck her when he entered the room, and that his statement of his
age must have correctly described the age of her son. Recall the actions
that followed, after she had been exhausted by her first successful
efforts at self-control--the withdrawal to the window to conceal her
face; the clutch at the curtain when she felt herself sinking; the
harshness of manner under which she concealed her emotions when
she ventured to speak to him; the reiterated inconsistencies and
vacillations of conduct that followed, all alike due to the protest of
Nature, desperately resisted to the last--and say if I did her injustice
when I believed her to be incapable of running the smallest risk of
discovery at the prompting of maternal love.

There remained, then, only Michael to think of. I remember how he had
spoken of the unknown parents whom he neither expected nor cared to
discover. Still, I could not reconcile it to my conscience to accept a
chance outbreak of temper as my sufficient justification for keeping
him in ignorance of a discovery which so nearly concerned him. It seemed
at least to be my duty to make myself acquainted with the true state of
his feelings, before I decided to bear the burden of silence with me to
my grave.

What I felt it my duty to do in this serious matter, I determined to do
at once. Besides, let me honestly own that I felt lonely and desolate,
oppressed by the critical situation in which I was placed, and eager for
the relief that it would be to me only to hear the sound of Michael's
voice. I sent my maid to say that I wished to speak to him immediately.
The cris