“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.  A few words more would end it, and those few words she determined to speak.

“I have told you,” she said, “that the child of the lady whose portrait hangs there, was adopted in its infancy, and taken away by a stranger.  I am as certain of what I say as that I am now sitting here, obliged to distress you, sir, sorely against my will.  Please to carry your mind on, now, to about three months after that time.  I was then at the Foundling, in London, waiting to take some children to our institution in the country.  There was a question that day about naming an infant—­a boy—­who had just been received.  We generally named them out of the Directory.  On this occasion, one of the gentlemen who managed the Hospital happened to be looking over the Register.  He noticed that the name of the baby who had been adopted (’Walter Wilding’) was scratched out—­for the reason, of course, that the child had been removed for good from our care.  ’Here’s a name to let,’ he said.  ’Give it to the new foundling who has been received to-day.’  The name was given, and the child was christened.  You, sir, were that child.”

The wine-merchant’s head dropped on his breast.  “I was that child!” he said to himself, trying helplessly to fix the idea in his mind.  “I was that child!”

“Not very long after you had been received into the Institution, sir,” pursued Mrs. Goldstraw, “I left my situation there, to be married.  If you will remember that, and if you can give your mind to it, you will see for yourself how the mistake happened.  Between eleven and twelve years passed before the lady, whom you have believed to be your mother, returned to the Foundling, to find her son, and to remove him to her own home.  The lady only knew that her infant had been called ’Walter Wilding.’  The matron who took pity on her, could but point out the only ‘Walter Wilding’ known in the Institution.  I, who might have set the matter right, was far away from the Foundling and all that belonged to it.  There was nothing—­there was really nothing that could prevent this terrible mistake from taking place.  I feel for you—­I do indeed, sir!  You must think—­and with reason—­that it was in an evil hour that I came here (innocently enough, I’m sure), to apply for your housekeeper’s place.  I feel as if I was to blame—­I feel as if I ought to have had more self-command.  If I had only been able to keep my face from showing you what that portrait and what your own words put into my mind, you need never, to your dying day, have known what you know now.”

Mr. Wilding looked up suddenly.  The inbred honesty of the man rose in protest against the housekeeper’s last words.  His mind seemed to steady itself, for the moment, under the shock that had fallen on it.