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.