, can it be true that--"

"That Edgar is not your brother, my boy? Yes, it is certain that he is
not your brother, though whether he or you is our son we know not."

Rupert stood speechless with astonishment. "One of us not your son!" he
said at last in a broken voice. "Oh, father, how can that be?"

"It happened thus, Rupert," Captain Clinton said, and then told him the
story of the confusion that had arisen between the children. He then
went on: "You see, Rupert, we hoped, your mother and I, at first that we
should find out as you grew up, by the likeness one of you might develop
to your mother or myself, which was our child; but for some years now,
my boy, I have feared rather than hoped to discover a likeness, and have
been glad that neither of you took after either of us, as far as we
could see. We loved you equally, and could not bear the thought of
losing either of you. We had two sons instead of one, that was all; and
had one been proved to be ours, we should have lost the other. We
intended to tell you in a short time how the matter stood, and that
while one was our adopted son and the other our own, we neither knew nor
cared which was which, loving you both equally and regarding you both as
our own. Indeed we should never have told you about it, had it not been
that as the story of the confusion at your birth was known to a great
many men who were at that time in India, it was almost sure to come to
your ears sooner or later. Had we ever dreamt that it would come like
this, of course we should have told you long ago. But how can Edgar have
learnt it? Still more, how can anyone have been able to tell him--what
even we do not know--that he is not our son?"

"You will know when the letter arrives by the next post, father. But now
I have heard the story, I think it must have been told him by a woman;"
and he related how they had been watched by a woman who was a stranger
to them.

"What was she like, Rupert?"

Rupert described her as well as he was able.

"I have no doubt that it was Mrs. Humphreys, Rupert; she would be about
the age you describe, and, allowing for the seventeen years that have
passed since I have seen her, like her in appearance. But we had better
go in to your mother now, she must be told. I will go in first and break
it to her. Of course there is nothing else that can be done until we get
Edgar's letter. I will send a man off on horseback to the post-office,
we shall get it an hour earli