"Mother," said he at last, "who is my father? Is he dead or alive?"

"God is your father, my son," answered she, tremblingly. "If you love
me, ask me no more."

"I do love you, mother," he said, and gave her a grave look, in which
she thought she detected a mingling of tenderness and reproach. "And it
shall be as you have said."

It was the first time she had had reason to blush before him, and
her emotion came near overwhelming her; but with a violent effort she
stifled it, and remained outwardly calm. He began pacing up and down the
floor with his head bent and his hands on his back. It suddenly occurred
to her that he was a grown man, and that she could no longer hold the
same relation to him as his supporter and protector. "Alas," thought
she, "if God will but let me remain his mother, I shall bless and thank
Him."

It was the first time this subject had been broached, and it gave rise
to many a doubt and many a question in the anxious mother's mind. Had
she been right in concealing from him that which he might justly claim
to know? What had been her motive in keeping him ignorant of his origin
and of the land of his birth? She had wished him to grow to the strength
of manhood, unconscious of guilt, so that he might bear his head
upright, and look the world fearlessly in the face. And still, had there
not in all this been a lurking thought of herself, a fear of losing his
love, a desire to stand pure and perfect in his eye? She hardly dared
to answer these questions, for, alas, she knew not that even our purest
motives are but poorly able to bear a searching scrutiny. She began to
suspect that her whole course with her son had been wrong from the very
beginning. Why had she not told him the stern truth, even if he should
despise her for it, even if she should have to stand a blushing culprit
in his presence? Often, when she heard his footsteps in the hall, as
he returned from the work of the day, she would man herself up and the
words hovered upon her lips: "Son, thou art a bastard born, a child of
guilt, and thy mother is an outcast upon the earth." But when she met
those calm blue eyes of his, saw the unsuspecting frankness of his
manner and the hopefulness with which he looked to the future, her
womanly heart shrank from its duty, and she hastened out of the room,
threw herself on her bed, and wept. Fiercely she wrestled with God in
prayer, until she thought that even God had deserted her. Thus months
passed