"Oh! how I wish I was strong enough to start! Come in here, Mat, and let's talk about it."
"Wait a bit, and I will." Pronouncing those words, he rose from his chair. "For your sake, Zack," he said, and dropped the letter into the fire.
"What can you be about all this time?" asked young Thorpe.
"Do you call to mind," said Mat, going into the bedroom, and sitting down by the lad's pillow--"Do you call to mind me saying, that I'd be brothers with you, when first us two come together? Well, Zack, I've only been trying to be as good as my word."
"Trying? What do you mean? I don't understand, old fellow."
"Never mind: you'll make it out better some day. Let's talk about getting aboard ship, and going a buffalo-hunting now."
They discussed the projected expedition, until Zack grew sleepy. As he fell off into a pleasant doze, Mat went back into the front-room; and, taking from the table Mr. Thorpe's letter to Mr. Blyth, left Kirk Street immediately for the painter's house.
It had occurred to Valentine to unlock his bureau twice since his return from the country, but on neither occasion had he found it necessary to open that long narrow drawer at the back, in which he had secreted the Hair Bracelet years ago. He was consequently still totally ignorant that it had been taken away from him, when Matthew Grice entered the painting-room, and quietly put it into his hand.
Consternation and amazement so thoroughly overpowered him, that he suffered his visitor to lock the door against all intruders, and then to lead him peremptorily to a chair, without uttering a single word of inquiry or expostulation. All though the narrative, on which Mat now entered, he sat totally speechless, until Mr. Thorpe's letter was placed in his hands, and he was informed that Madonna was still to be left entirely under his own care. Then, for the first time, his cheeks showed symptoms of returning to their natural color, and he exclaimed fervently, "Thank God! I shan't lose her after all! I only wish you had begun by telling me of that, the moment you came into the room!"
Saying this, he began to read Mr. Thorpe's letter. When he had finished it, and looked up at Mat, the tears were in his eyes.
"I can't help it," said the simple-hearted painter. "It would even affect you, Mr. Grice, to be addressed in such terms of humiliation as these. How can he doubt my forgiving him, when he has a right to my everlasting gratitude for not asking me to part with our darling child? They never met--he has never, never, seen her face," continued Valentine, in lower and fainter tones. "She always wore her veil down, by my wish, when we went out; and our walks were generally into the country, instead of town way. I only once remember seeing him coming towards us; and then I crossed the road with her, knowing we were not on terms. There's something shocking in father and daughter living so near each other, yet being--if one may say so--so far, so very far apart. It is dreadful to think of that. It is far more dreadful to think of its having been her hand which held up the hair for you to look at, and her little innocent action which led to the discovery of who her father really was!"
"Do you ever mean to let her know as much about it as we do?" asked Matthew.
The look of dismay began to appear again in Valentine's face. "Have you told Zack, yet?" he inquired, nervously and eagerly.
"No," said Mat; "and don't you! When Zack's on his legs again, he's going to take a voyage, and get a season's hunting along with me in the wild country over the water. I'm as fond of the lad as if he was a bit of my own flesh and blood. I cottoned to him when he hit out so hearty for me at the singing-shop--and we've been brothers together ever since. You mightn't think it, to look at me; but I've spared Zack's father for Zack's sake; and I don't ask no more reward for it than to take the lad a hunting for a season or two along with me. When he comes back home again, and we say Good-bye, I'll tell him all what's happened; but I won't risk bringing so much as a cross look into his eyes now, by dropping a word to him of what's passed betwixt his father and me."
Although this speech excited no little surprise and interest in Valentine's mind, it did not succeed in suspending the anxieties which had been awakened in him by Matthew's preceding question, and which he now began to feel the necessity of confiding to Mrs. Blyth--his grand counselor in all difficulties, and unfailing comforter in all troubles.
"Do you mind waiting here," he said, "while I go upstairs, and break the news to my wife? Without her advice I don't know what to do about communicating our discovery to the poor dear child. Do you mind waiting?"
No: Matthew would willingly wait. Hearing this, Mr. Blyth left the room directly.
He remained away a long time. When he came back, his face did not seem to have gained in composure during his absence.
"My wife has told me of another discovery," he said, "which her motherly love for our adopted daughter enabled her to make some time since. I have been sadly surprised and distressed at hearing of it. But I need say no more on the subject to you, than that Mrs. Blyth has at once decided me to confide nothing to Madonna--to Mary, I ought to say--until Zack has got well again and has left England. When I heard just now, from you, of his projected voyage, I must confess I saw many objections to it. They have all been removed by what my wife has told me. I heartily agree with her that the best thing Zack can do is to make the trip he proposes. You are willing to take care of him; and I honestly believe that we may safely trust him with you."
A serious difficulty being thus disposed of, Valentine found leisure to pay some attention to minor things. Among other questions which he now asked, was one relating to the Hair Bracelet, and to the manner in which Matthew had become possessed of it. He was answered by the frankest confession, a confession which tried even his kindly and forbearing disposition to the utmost, as he listened to it; and which drew from him, when it was ended, some of the strongest terms of reproach that had ever passed his lips.
Mat listened till he had done; then, taking his hat to go, muttered a few words of rough apology, which Valentine's good-nature induced him to accept, almost as soon as they were spoken. "We must let bygones be bygones," said the painter. "You have been candid with me, at last, at any-rate; and, in recognition of that candor, I say 'Good-night, Mr. Grice,' as a friend of yours still."
When Mat returned to Kirk Street, the landlady came out of her little parlor to tell him of a visitor who had been to the lodgings in his absence. An elderly lady, looking very pale and ill, had asked to see young Mr. Thorpe, and had prefaced the request by saying that she was his mother. Zack was then asleep, but the lady had been taken up stairs to see him in bed--had stooped over him, and kissed him--and had then gone away again, hastily, and in tears.