I never was your son! I am Nicholas Korpanoff, a merchant at Irkutsk." And suddenly he left the public room, whilst for the last time the words re-echoed, "My son! my son!" Michael Strogoff, by a desperate effort, had gone.

He did not see his old mother, who had fallen back almost inanimate upon a bench.

But when the postmaster hastened to assist her, the aged woman raised herself.
Suddenly a thought occurred to her.

She denied by her son! It was not possible.

As for being herself deceived, and taking another for him, equally impossible.