She yearned over him as he told her, for all her terror. His voice, for
all its steadiness, was strained.
"I have felt for some time," he finished, "that you and David were
keeping something from me. I think, now, that this is what it was. Of
course, you realize that I shall have to know."
"Dick! Dick!" was all she could say.
"I was about," he went on, with his almost terrible steadiness, "to ask
a girl to take my name. I want to know if I have a name to offer her. I
have, you see, only two alternatives to believe about myself. Either
I am Henry Livingstone's illegitimate son, and in that case I have no
right to my name, or to offer it to any one, or I am--"
He made a despairing gesture.
"--or I am some one else, some one who was smuggled out of the mountains
and given an identity that makes him a living lie."
Always she had known that this might come some time, but always too she
had seen David bearing the brunt of it. He should bear it. It was not
of her doing or of her approving. For years the danger of discovery had
hung over her like a cloud.
"Do you know which?" he persisted.
"Yes, Dick."
"Would you have the unbelievable cruelty not to tell me?"
She got up, a taut little figure with a dignity born of her fear and of
her love for him.
"I shall not betray David's confidence," she said. "Long ago I warned
him that this time would come. I was never in favor of keeping you
in ignorance. But it is David's problem, and I cannot take the
responsibility of telling you."
He knew her determination and her obstinate loyalty. But he was fairly
desperate.
"You know that if you don't tell me, I shall go to David?"
"If you go now you will kill him."
"It's as bad as that, is it?" he asked grimly. "Then there is something
shameful behind it, is there?"
"No, no, Dick. Not that. And I want you, always, to remember this. What
David did was out of love for you. He has made many sacrifices for you.
First he saved your life, and then he made you what you are. And he has
had a great pride in it. Don't destroy his work of years."
Her voice broke and she turned to go out, her chin quivering, but half
way to the door he called to her.