"My boy!" she said; "what will he say—what will he do? But he must know, for his own sake and for mine. He must know that his mother is an honest woman and tried to do right."
The day was dark and drear. Clouds hung heavily in the sky and the moorland was wrapt in a fine mist so peculiar to that district. The roads were heavy, and one could hear the silt crush beneath her feet as she walked.
A little later the two met, and the relationship was evident at the first glance. They were mother and son. The youth was about seventeen years of age, tall and muscular. He wore the dress of a mechanic, and there was in his appearance a suggestion of capability and of resolute resolve. Strangely handsome he was, and yet no one seemed attracted by him. During his journey from Bodmin a labourer would pass the time of day, but he seemed to take no notice. And once the driver of a farmer's cart offered to give him a lift, but he only shook his head and trudged on. There was an eager questioning look in his eyes, and he seemed to be wondering greatly as to the result of his journey. Two days before he had received a letter, urging him to come to a certain spot on Altarnun Moors, and promising him that he should hear of things concerning which he had long been anxious to know. The letter had no signature, but the address given was "Lancroft, near Launceston." Who the writer of the letter was the youth had not the slightest idea, but he never thought of refusing the request made. Almost ever since he could remember he had wondered concerning his father and mother, and now he felt sure that the time of revelation was come.
Presently the two met, and each looked steadily into the other's face, as if wondering who the other might be.
"You received a letter two days ago?" said the woman.
"Yes," was his reply.
"I wrote it." Simple as the words were, they were uttered with a sob.
He saw that she was under very strong emotion, and noted the yearning look in her eyes.
"You have wondered all your life who your father and mother are?" and the woman controlled her voice with difficulty. "I know you have. You want to know all about them, don't you?"
"I shouldn't have come here if I hadn't!" was his reply.
"I'm your mother!" said the woman.
He looked at her curiously. He had been thinking, ever since they had met, whether this might not be so; nevertheless the news came to him as a kind of shock. A woman with sad eyes and an expression of unsatisfied yearning in her face; yet handsome withal.
"Do you not believe it?" she asked. "My boy! my boy! I'm your mother, and, if I have kept silent about it, it has been for love of you!"
And she held out her hands towards him.
It seemed as though something touched his heart, as though his whole being thrilled with a recognition of the truth, and, in a way he could not understand, a great love for this lonely woman sprang suddenly into his heart.
"Yes, I believe you are my mother."
"I have come to tell you everything, Paul," she said. "It's a sad story, but I believe you'll understand."
"Yes," he replied, "I shall understand!"
The woman looked at him, still with the same expression of tender yearning in her eyes.
"It's a hard question to ask," she said, "but can you feel towards me as a laddie should feel to his mother?"
"Yes," he replied, "I do."
"Then call me 'Mother,' and kiss me!" she cried passionately.
"Mother!" he said, and held her close to him.
A few minutes later she began to tell him the things which for years he had been longing to know, and concerning which gossip had been rife.
"I want to know, mother," he said, "who my father is, where I was born, and why the truth has been so long kept from me."
"Born," she said, and her face became hard; "you were born in a workhouse, and your father would call himself a gentleman, and we were married in Scotland!"
A bright light came into the youth's eyes at the last part of the sentence. "But is my father alive?" he asked eagerly.
"I do not know," she replied; "I think he must be. I feel sure he is, but I cannot tell. Listen. I was reared in Scotland, not far beyond the English border. My name was Jean Lindsay. My father had been a fisherman as a young man, but came to Cornwall for his wife, and soon after he brought her to Scotland and I was born, she died. He had a farm in Scotland, and there I lived with my stepmother and stepbrothers and sisters, who made life a misery for me until I was eighteen, and then one day I met a gentleman. Oh, my lad, it was no wonder I loved him; he was different from all the lads I had met in those parts, young, handsome, laughter-loving, just the man to captivate a lassie's heart. He married me, Scottish fashion, and on the day we were wed he told me he had received a letter which urged him to go back to his home at once. We were married secretly, my boy, because I was afraid for my father and stepmother to know. They wanted me to wed a young farmer, and would have forced me to do so but for him, and I could not—how could I when I loved him and he loved me? And I believed in him too; he was all the world to me. No one knew but he and me. But when we were married and he came to the inn, he told the landlady I was his wife."
The boy nodded. "And the letter, mother?" he said, "the letter, what of that?"
"It urged him to go to his home," she replied. "You must remember, my boy, that I was young and ignorant. I knew nothing of the ways of the world, nothing of men, but I loved him devotedly. He was my king, my life! When he had read the letter, he said he must leave the following morning, and urged me to go back to my home and wait until he could come and fetch me. I was to tell them, he said, that we were married, and that thus I was free from the attentions of Willie Fearn, the farmer they wanted me to wed."
The youth did not seem to understand her, but looked at her with wild wonder in his eyes, trying to comprehend the story she was telling. It seemed utterly unreal to him. He wondered whether she fully realised what she was saying.
"Yes, mother," he said at length, "go on."
"What could I do but obey him?" she said. "I had promised before God that I would, and I did. I went back to my father—he had wondered where I had gone—and told him I had wedded a young Englishman named Douglas Graham. I think my father thought that all was right, for, while he spoke harsh words to me, he seemed presently to settle down to the conviction that my husband would soon come to me, and that I should be a lady. But my stepmother said awful things. I will not tell you what! Even now her words cut me like a knife."
"Well," said the youth, "and what then?"
"Day after day I waited for a letter from him," she replied. "At first I hadn't a doubt; he had promised me and I believed him. But when one month had gone, and then two, I grew desperate."
"And he never wrote to you at all?" asked the youth.
"At the end of three months," she replied, "I got a letter."
"Yes"—and his voice was eager—"what did he say?"
"Here it is," she replied, and she passed him a crumpled piece of paper. The envelope was stamped with a London