"I pitied and loved his lonely mother. When his mother lay a dying I
said to her, 'My dear, this baby is sent to a childless old woman.' He
has been my pride and joy ever since. I love him as dearly as if he had
drunk from my breast. Do you ask to see my grandson before you die?"

Yes.

"Show me, when I leave off speaking, if you correctly understand what I
say. He has been kept unacquainted with the story of his birth. He has
no knowledge of it. No suspicion of it. If I bring him here to the side
of this bed, he will suppose you to be a perfect stranger. It is more
than I can do to keep from him the knowledge that there is such wrong and
misery in the world; but that it was ever so near him in his innocent
cradle I have kept from him, and I do keep from him, and I ever will keep
from him, for his mother's sake, and for his own."

He showed me that he distinctly understood, and the tears fell from his
eyes.

"Now rest, and you shall see him."

So I got him a little wine and some brandy, and I put things straight
about his bed. But I began to be troubled in my mind lest Jemmy and the
Major might be too long of coming back. What with this occupation for my
thoughts and hands, I didn't hear a foot upon the stairs, and was
startled when I saw the Major stopped short in the middle of the room by
the eyes of the man upon the bed, and knowing him then, as I had known
him a little while ago.

There was anger in the Major's face, and there was horror and repugnance