I was not too soon. A very little and I should have
been too late."
He took his hand from the boy, and laying it on the back of that
hand of hers, whose timid and yet earnest touch addressed him no
less appealingly than her voice and eyes, looked more intently on
her.
"He IS the father of Mr. Edmund, the young gentleman we saw just
now. His real name is Longford. - You recollect the name?"
"I recollect the name."
"And the man?"
"No, not the man. Did he ever wrong me?"
"Yes!"
"Ah! Then it's hopeless - hopeless."
He shook his head, and softly beat upon the hand he held, as though
mutely asking her commiseration.
"I did not go to Mr. Edmund last night," said Milly, - "You will
listen to me just the same as if you did remember all?"
"To every syllable you say."
"Both, because I did not know, then, that this really was his
father, and because I was fearful of the effect of such
intelligence upon him, after his illness, if it should be. Since I
have known who this person is, I have not gone either; but that is
for another reason. He has long been separated from his wife and
son - has been a stranger to his home almost from this son's
infancy, I learn from him - and has abandoned and deserted what he
should have held most dear. In all that time he has been falling
from the state of a gentleman, more and more, until - " she rose
up, hastily, and going out for a moment, returned, accompanied by
the wreck that Redlaw had beheld last night.
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