'Your threats, evil
man,' replied the woman quietly, 'have no terrors for me now. My son
is beyond your reach. Oh, Mrs Arbuthnot,' she added, turning towards
and addressing that lady, 'believe not'----
Her husband sprang at her with the bound of a panther. 'Silence! Go
home, or I'll strangle'----His own utterance was arrested by the
fierce grasp of Mr Arbuthnot, who seized him by the throat, and hurled
him to the further end of the room. 'Speak on, woman; and quick!
quick! What have you to say?'
'That your son, dearest lady,' she answered, throwing herself at Mrs
Arbuthnot's feet, 'is as truly your own child as ever son born of
woman!'
That shout of half-fearful triumph seems even now as I write to ring
in my ears! I _felt_ that the woman's words were words of truth, but I
could not see distinctly: the room whirled round, and the lights
danced before my eyes, but I could hear through all the choking
ecstasy of the mother, and the fury of the baffled felon.
'The letter,' continued Mrs Danby, 'which my husband found and opened,
would have informed you, sir, of the swiftly approaching death of _my_
child, and that yours had been carefully kept beyond the reach of
contagion. The letter you received was written without my knowledge or
consent. True it is that, terrified by my husband's threats, and in
some measure reconciled to the wicked imposition by knowing that,
after all, the right child would be in his right place, I afterwards
lent myself to Danby's evil purposes.
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