"Grey, my boy, how are you? I am glad to see you, very glad," he said, as his son entered the room; and when Grey sat down by him, and taking his thin, white hand, pressed it gently and said, "Poor father, you are not well, are you?" he did a most astonishing thing. He laid his head on his son's arm and sobbed aloud: "No, Grey, I am sick--in mind, not in body--and I have been sick these--how old are you, Grey?"
"Twenty-six, my next birthday," Grey replied, and he continued: "Yes, you were fourteen when your grandfather died. Twelve years ago, and for twelve years I have been sick--very sick. Oh, Grey, if I dared to tell you, and ask you what to do!"
"You need not tell me," Grey said to him. "I know what you mean, and have known it ever since grandpa died, for I was there that night, unknown to you or any one; was in the kitchen by the stove, and heard what grandpa told you. Don't you remember how sick I was after it? Well, that was what ailed me. Aunt Hannah knows. I told her, and together we have tried to find his heirs, and, father, we have found them, or her, for there is but one direct heir of his sister Elizabeth, and that--and that--is Bessie, my wife. Oh, father, look up, bear up; you must not faint," Grey continued in alarm, as he felt his father press heavily against him, and saw the ghastly pallor on his face.
"Bessie--your wife--the heir! And does she know what we do?" Mr. Jerrold gasped, and Grey replied: "Yes, everything--and knew it before I married her. Listen, and I will tell you all."
Ringing the bell, Grey bade the servant who appeared bring a glass of wine, which he made his father swallow, and then, supporting him with his arm, he told him everything, from the night when he had knelt upon the snow in the woods and asked to be forgiven for his grandfather's sin, down to the present time.
"And you knew it all these years when I was trying to hide it from you," Mr. Jerrold said; "and you have worked while I have only sat still and brooded; and you have found the heir in Bessie. Are you sure it is Bessie? Oh, Grey! God bless you, my boy! You do not know what a load of care you have taken from me, for, though my father's sin is none the less, it does not hurt me as much, and I feel as if I could forgive him all. I do not believe he was so much in fault. The peddler struck him first, you know. I must see Hannah, and hear the story again. What time do you return to Allington?"