Just as they sat down to the tea-table, the wet, weary travellers reached Up-Hill.  With a sigh of pleasure and content, Ducie once more passed into its comfortable shelter; and never had it seemed to her such a haven of earthly peace.  Her usually placid face bore marks of strong emotion; she was physically tired; and Stephen was glad to see her among the white fleeces of his grandfather’s big chair, with her feet outstretched to the blazing warmth of the fire, and their cosey tea-service by her side.  Always reticent with him, she had been very tryingly so on their journey.  No explanation of it had been given; and he had been permitted to pass his time among the looms in Ireland’s mill, while she and the lawyer were occupied about affairs to which even his signature was not asked.

As they sat together in the evening, she caught his glance searching her face tenderly; and she bent forward, and said, “Kiss me, Stephen, my dear lad.  I have seen this week how kind and patient, how honorable and trustful, thou art.  Well, then, the hour has come that will try thy love to the uttermost.  But wise or unwise, all that has been done has been done with good intent, and I look for no word to pain me from thy mouth.  Stephen, what is thy name?”

“Stephen Latrigg.”

“Nay, but it isn’t.”

Stephen blushed vividly; his mother’s face was white and calm.  “I would rather be called Latrigg than—­the other name, than by my father’s name.”

“Has any one named thy father to thee?”

“Charlotte told me what you and she said on the matter.  She understood his name to be Pattison.  We were wondering if our marriage could be under my adopted name, that was all, and things like it.”

Ducie was watching his handsome face as he spoke, and feeling keenly the eager deprecation of pain to herself, mingling with the natural curiosity about his own identity, which the cloud upon his early years warranted.  She looked at him steadily, with eyes shining brightly through tears.

“Your name is not Pattison, neither is it Latrigg.  When you marry Charlotte Sandal, it must be by your own true name; and that is Stephen Sandal.”

“Stephen Sandal, mother?”

“Yes.  You are the son of Launcelot Sandal, the late squire’s eldest brother.”

“Then, mother, then I am—­What am I, mother?”

“You are squire of Sandal-Side and Torver.  No living man but you has a right to the name, or the land, or to Seat-Sandal.”

“I should have known this before, mother.”

“I think not.  We had, father and I, what we believed good reasons, and kind reasons, for holding our peace.  But times and circumstances have changed; and, where silence was once true friendship and kindness, it is now wrong and cruelty.  Many years ago, Stephen, when I was young and beautiful, Launcelot Sandal loved me.  And my father and Launcelot’s father loved each other as David and Jonathan loved.