A Bitter Heritage. John Bloundelle-Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ its normal state, most of us have observed: the lips whitening for a moment, the left hand raised as though about to be pressed to the side, the dead white of the complexion.

      "If," he said, "it pains you to tell me anything of the past, why-why-tell it at all? Is it worth while? Your life can contain little that must necessarily be revealed and-even though it should do so-why reveal it?"

      "I must," his father answered, "I must tell you. Oh!" he exclaimed, "oh! if at the last it should turn you against me-make you-despise-hate-"

      "No! No! never think that," Julian replied quickly, "never think that. What! Turn against you! A difference between you and me! It is impossible."

      As he spoke he was standing by his father's side, the latter being seated in his armchair, and Julian's hand was on the elder man's shoulder. Then, as he patted that shoulder-once, too, as he touched softly the almost prematurely grey hair-he said, his voice deep and low and full of emotion:

      "Whatever you may tell me can make no difference in my love and respect for you. How can you think so? Recall what we have been to each other since I was a child. Always together till I went to sea-not father and son, but something almost closer, comrades-"

      "Ah, Julian!"

      "Do you think I can ever forget that, or forget your sacrifices for me; all that you have done to fit me for the one career I could have been happy in? Why, if you told me that you-oh! I don't know what to say! how to make you understand me! – but, if you told me you were a murderer, a convict, a forger, I should still love you; love you as you say you loved the mother I never knew-"

      "Don't! Don't! For Heaven's sake don't speak like that-don't speak of her! Your mother! I-I-have to speak to you of her later. But now-now-I cannot bear it!"

      For a moment Julian looked at his father, his eyes full of amazement; around his heart a pang that seemed to grip at it. They had not often spoken of his mother in the past, the subject always seeming one that was too painful to Mr. Ritherdon to be discussed, and, beyond the knowledge that she had died in giving birth to him, Julian knew nothing further. Yet now, his father's agitation-such as he had never seen before-his strange excitement, appalled, almost staggered him.

      "Why?" he exclaimed, unable to refrain from dwelling upon her. "Why not speak of her? Was she-"

      "She was an angel. Ah," he continued, "I was right-this story of my past must be told-of my crime. Remember that, Julian, remember that. My crime! If you listen to me, if you will hear me, as you must-then remember it is the story of a crime that you will learn. And," he wailed almost, "there is no help for it. You must be told!"

      "Tell it, then," Julian said, still speaking very gently, though even as he did so it seemed as if he were the elder man, as if he were the father and the other the son. "Tell it, let us have done with vagueness. There has never been anything hidden between us till now. Let there be nothing whatever henceforth."

      "And you will not hate me? You will-forgive, whatever I may have to tell?"

      "What have I said?" Julian replied. And even as he did so, he again smoothed his father's hair while he stood beside him.

      CHAPTER II

      THE STORY OF A CRIME

      The disclosure was made, not among, perhaps, surroundings befitting the story that was told; not with darkness outside and in the house-with, in truth, no lurid environments whatever. Instead, the elderly man and the young one, the father and son, sat facing each other in the bright sunny room into which there streamed all the warmth and brilliancy of the late springtide, and into which, now and again, a humble-bee came droning or a butterfly fluttered. Also, between them was a table white with napery, sparkling with glass and silver, gay with fresh-cut flowers from the garden. It is amid such surroundings that, nowadays, we often enough listen to stories brimful with fate-stories baneful either to ourselves or others-hear of trouble that has fallen like a blight upon those we love, or learn that something has happened which is to change forever the whole current of our own lives.

      It was thus that Julian Ritherdon listened to the narrative his father now commenced to unfold; thus amid such environment, and with a freshly-lit cigarette between his lips.

      "You do not object to this?" he asked, pointing to the latter; "it will not disturb you?"

      "I object to nothing that you do," Mr. Ritherdon replied. "In my day, I have, as you know, been a considerable smoker myself."

      "Yes, in the days, your days, that I know of. But-forgive me for asking-only-is it to tell me of your earlier years, those with which I am not acquainted, that you summoned me here and bade me lose no time in coming to you? – those earlier days of which you have spoken so little in the past?"

      "For that," replied the other slowly, "and other reasons. To hear things that will startle and disconcert you. Yet-yet-they have their bright side. You are the heir to a great-"

      "My dear father!"

      "Your 'dear father'! Ay! Your 'dear father'!" Once more, nay, twice more, he repeated those words-while all the time the younger man was looking at him intently. "Your 'dear father.'" Then, suddenly, he exclaimed: "Come, let us make a beginning. Are you prepared to hear a strange story?"

      "I am prepared to hear anything you may have to tell me."

      "So be it. Pay attention. You have but this moment called me your 'dear father.' Well, I am not your father! Though I should have been had all happened as I once-so long ago-so-so long ago-hoped would be the case."

      "Not-my-father!" and the younger man stared with a startled look at the other. "Not-my-father. You, who have loved me, fostered me, anticipated every thought, every wish of mine since the first moment I can recollect-not my father! Oh!" and even as he spoke he laid his hand, brown but shapely, on the white, sickly looking one of the other. "Don't say that! Don't say that!"

      "I must say it."

      "My God! who, then, are you? What are you to me? And-and-who-am-I? It cannot be that we are of strange blood."

      And the faltering words of the younger man, the blanched look that had come upon his face beneath his bronze-also the slight tremor of the cigarette between his fingers would have told Mr. Ritherdon, even though he had not already known well enough that such was the case, how deep a shock his words had produced.

      "No," he answered slowly, and on his face, too, there was, if possible, a denser, more deadly white than had been there an hour ago-while his lips had become even a deeper leaden hue than before. "No. Heaven at least be praised for that! I am your father's brother, therefore, your uncle."

      "Thank Heaven we are so near of kin," and again the hand of the young man pressed that of the elder one. "Now," he continued, though his voice was solemn-hoarse as he spoke, "go on. Tell me all. Blow as this is-yet-tell me all."

      "First," replied the other, "first let me show you something. It came to me by accident, otherwise perhaps I should not have summoned you so hurriedly to this meeting; should have restrained my impatience to see you. Yet-yet-in my state of health, it is best to tell you by word of mouth-better than to let you find out when-I-am-dead, through the account I have written and should have left behind me. But, to begin with, read this," and he took from his breast pocket a neatly bound notebook, and, opening it, removed from between the pages a piece of paper-a cutting from a newspaper.

      Still agitated-as he would be for hours, for days hence! – at all that he had already listened to, still sorrowful at hearing that the man whom he loved so much, who СКАЧАТЬ