Page:Steadfast Heart.djvu/369

 act a part. To Angus she looked what she was, an aristocratic old lady, a willful old lady, an old lady who would be above meanness or intrigue, and who would sacrifice much for the thing called honor. She forestalled his reply.

“Do you mean that something has happened since Lydia went away? That—but how could you be Henry G.’s grandson? It’s impossible.”

“His daughter was my father’s wife,” said Angus, “and my mother.”

“Kate, who ran away?”

“She ran away with my father.”

Great-aunt Margaret laid her long, slender, beautifully kept hand upon Angus’s arm. “Young man,” she said, “this is the first time I have heard that fact. I did not know it. Lydia did not know it. No such word has reached us…. I give you my word of honor. Do you know where Lydia has been?”

“No.”

“She has been with me in Paris. She has had no communication whatever with Rainbow, and knew nothing of what happened here. She came back to you—to you. She believed your father still alive. She didn’t know, doesn’t realize now, that you are anybody but Angus Burke. How could she know?… You should have seen her and been with her during these long months, young man…. Then you’d know…. She