Page:Arminell, a social romance (1896).djvu/164

156 as, when a violincello string is touched, a piano chord trembles responsive. Such voices make not the voices, but the hearts of other men to tremble. I know a slater who, when I am ordering of him slates, brings tears into my eyes by asking if I will have "Duchess" or "Rag."

"My words are quickly explained," said Stephen Saltren. "I have never regarded you as my son—have never treated you as such. You know that I have shown you no fatherly affection, because I knew from the beginning that not a drop of my blood flowed in your veins. But never, before this evening, have I allowed you, or any one else, to suspect what I knew, lest the honour of your mother should suffer. Now, and only now, has the entire truth been disclosed to me. I did not suspect it, no, not when you were christened and given the name you bear. I thought it was a compliment paid through a fancy of your mother's to the family in which she had lived, that was all. A little flickering suspicion may have been aroused afterwards, when his lordship, to save you from consumption, sent you abroad; but I put it angrily from me as unworthy of being harboured. I had no real grounds for suspicion; since then it has come up in my heart again and again, and I have stamped down the hateful thought with a kind of rage and shame at myself for thinking it. Only to-night has the whole story been told me, and I find that your mother was not to blame—that no real dishonour stains her—that all the fault, all the guilt, lies on and blackens—blackens and degrades his soul!"

"I did not mean to say—that is, I did not wish——" began Mrs. Saltren, in a weeping, expostulating tone.

"Marianne, say nothing." Captain Saltren turned to her. "It is not for you to justify yourself to your child. The story shall be told him by me. I will spare you the pain and shame."

"But, mother," said Jingles, shutting the door behind