It was November when Sir Charles died, and Lady Henrietta betook herself
to her sister's for consolation, while Sir Paul and the Boy, with a
common impulse, departed for India.
They spent Christmas in Egypt, the winter months in the desert, and at
last spring came, with its remembrance of duties to be done. And to the
elder man England made its insistent call, as it always did in March.
For was it not in England, and in March, the tidings reached him that
unto him a son was born?
He must go back.
So at last, acting upon a pre-arrangement to which the young Prince had
not been a party, they made their way back to their own world of men and
women.
* * * * *
"Boy," said Sir Paul, one day, "the time has come when many questions
you have asked and wondered about are to be answered, as is your due. It
was your mother's wish that you should go, at the beginning of May,
alone, to Lucerne. There you will find letters awaiting you--from
her--from your Uncle Peter--yes, even from myself--telling you the whole
secret of your birth, the story of your inheritance."
"Why Lucerne, Father Paul?"
"It was your mother's wish--and mine!"
Then, with a rush of tenderness, the older man threw his arm around the
Boy's shoulders. "Boy," he said, "be charitable and lenient and
kind--whatever you read!"
"And what are you going to do, Father Paul? I have not quite two weeks
of freedom left, and I begrudge every day I am forced to spend away from
you. You will go with me to see me crowned--and married?"
"Certainly, Boy! You are to stay in Lucerne only until you are sure you
understand all the revelations of these letters, and their full import.
It may be a week--it may be a day--it may be but a few hours, but--I
can't go with you, and you must not ask me to! It is an experience you
must face alone. I will await you in Venice, Paul, and be sure that when
you want me, Boy, I will come!"
The Boy's sensitive nature was stirred to the depths by the emotion in
Sir Paul's face--emotion that all his life long he had never seen there
before. He grasped his hand--
"Father Paul," he began, but Sir Paul shook his head at the unspoken
appeal in his face and bade him be patient just a little longer and
await his letters, for he could tell him nothing.
And thus they parted; the Boy to seek in Lucerne the unveiling of his
destiny, the man to wait in Venice, a place he had shunned for
one-and-twenty years, but which was dearer to him than any other city in
the world. It was there that he had lived the climax of his love-life,
with its unutterable ecstasy--and unutterable pain.
Vasili had preceded his young master to Lucerne with the letters that
had been too precious, and of too secret a nature, to be entrusted to
the post. Who can define the sensations of the young prince as he held
in his hand the whole solution of the mystery that had haunted all his
years? He trembled--paled. What was this secret--perhaps this terrible
secret--which was to be a secret no longer?
Alone in his apartment, he opened the little packet and read the note
from the Regent, which enclosed the others, and then--he could read no
further. The few words of information that there stared him in the face
drove every other thought from his mind, every other emotion from his
heart. His father! Why hadn't he seen? Why hadn't he known? A thousand
significant memories rushed over him in the light of the startling
revelation. How blind he had been! And he sat for hours, unheeding the
flight of time, thinking only the one thought, saying over and over
again the one name, the name of his father, his own father, whom he had
loved so deeply all his life--
_Paul Verdayne!_