I scarcely knew whether I was awake or dreaming as Mr Smith closed his
strange story with the inquiry--
"Now do you wonder at my questions?"
Little had I thought when that evening I knocked at his door and
entered, that before I left the room I should have found Jack's father.
It was some time before I could talk coherently or rationally, I was so
excited, so wild at the discovery. My impulse was to rush to Jack at
once, and tell him what I had found, to run for Mr Hawkesbury, to
telegraph to Mrs Shield--to _do_ something.
"Don't be foolish," said he, who was now as composed as he had lately
been wild and excited. "We may be wrong after all."
"But there can be no doubt," I said. "This Mrs Shield is his old nurse
and his sister's--he has told me so himself--who took care of them when
their father--went away."
Mr Smith sighed.
"Surely," I cried, "you will come and tell Jack all about it?"
"Not yet," said he, quietly. "I have waited all these years; I can wait
two days more--till his examinations are over--and then you must do it
for me, my boy."
It was late before I left him and went up to my bed in Jack's room.
There he lay sound asleep, with pale, untroubled face, dreaming perhaps
of his examination to-morrow, but little dreaming of what was in store
when that was over.
It was little enough I could sleep during the night. As I lay and
tossed and thought over the events of the evening, I did not know
whether to be happy or afraid. Supposing Jack should refuse to own his
father! Suppose, when he heard that story of sin and shame, he should
turn and repudiate the father who had so cruelly wronged him and his
sister!
What a story it was! And yet, as I went over its details and pictured
to myself the tragedy of that ruined life, I trembled to think how
nearly a similar story might have been mine, had I not by God's grace
been mercifully arrested in time.
Who was I, to think ill of him? He had been driven to his ruin by a
shock which had nearly robbed him of reason. I had fallen through sheer
vanity and folly, and who was to say I might not have fallen as low as
he, had there been no hand to save me, no friend to recall me, by God's
mercy, to myself?