Try, pray try, to compose yourself, sir! It's no use disguising
it any longer. The child the stranger took away was the child of that
lady whose portrait hangs there!"
Mr. Wilding started to his feet. "Impossible!" he cried out, vehemently.
"What are you talking about? What absurd story are you telling me now?
There's her portrait! Haven't I told you so already? The portrait of my
mother!"
"When that unhappy lady removed you from the Foundling, in after years,"
said Mrs. Goldstraw, gently, "she was the victim, and you were the
victim, sir, of a dreadful mistake."
He dropped back into his chair. "The room goes round with me," he said.
"My head! my head!" The housekeeper rose in alarm, and opened the
windows. Before she could get to the door to call for help, a sudden
burst of tears relieved the oppression which had at first almost appeared
to threaten his life. He signed entreatingly to Mrs. Goldstraw not to
leave him. She waited until the paroxysm of weeping had worn itself out.
He raised his head as he recovered himself, and looked at her with the
angry unreasoning suspicion of a weak man.
"Mistake?" he said, wildly repeating her last word. "How do I know you
are not mistaken yourself?"
"There is no hope that I am mistaken, sir. I will tell you why, when you
are better fit to hear it."
"Now! now!"
The tone in which he spoke warned Mrs. Goldstraw that it would be cruel
kindness to let him comfort himself a moment longer with the vain hope
that she might be wrong.
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