“I left home, sir,” he exclaimed, in a firm tone, “under motives which I had hoped you would have appreciated. I was a burden to you, sir, in your poverty. I absorbed a share of that income which was barely enough to support the family without my addition. I had no means of aiding you, for I knew no trade. I left you, therefore, to fight the world as best I could, so that I relieved you of a tax upon your exertions. I left you in silence, because I would spare myself the entreaties, the urgings and implorings, to me to remain at home. They would have deeply affected and pained me without making me swerve from my purpose. I have remained silent during my absence, because my career has been a chequered one. I would not write to you until I could send some earnest of my love for you all with my communication. It was only at the last moment when almost in a day I became the owner of considerable wealth, that I felt the time had come for you to be made acquainted with my existence, and immediately I hastened to England to share with you what I had obtained; and if it were not enough for all, to leave you once more until I had won from Fortune sufficient for myself. Such, sir, are the facts I cannot beg you to believe them, because you know, sir, as a boy, I respected truth too reverently to give you the right to doubt them. I have no more to say, sir, than this. My bursting heart tells me that had my most fondly loved, my sainted mother have been spared by God to have met me here, my reception would not have been such as you have extended to me.”
Mark pressed his hands over his eyes. There was a convulsive twitching about the mouth of old Wilton, and his eyelids filled with water.
“Mark!” he exclaimed, in a husky voice: “Mark--my son! In the name of her whom you have apostrophised, come to my heart!”
Mark sprang into his father’s arms, and they embraced. They wrung each other’s hands warmly, and the reconciliation was complete.
Harry Vivian would have retired, to leave the father and son to themselves, though Colonel Mires did not offer to move, but old Wilton waved his hand to him to stay.
“You will oblige me by remaining, if you please, Mr. Vivian,” he said, making an effort to clear his voice. “We will settle our little unpleasant conference before you take your departure. You must see that it will be wise to do so--nay, that it will emphatically be necessary to do so.”