borrowed appellation than of all the titles of my lordly line.
Circumstances occurring within the last week which it will be needless
to relate, but which may have the greatest influence over my future
life, made it necessary to do what I had once resolved I would never
do,--prove my identity and origin. Accordingly I came here to seek
you."

"But why did not my honoured young master disclose himself last
night?" asked the steward.

"I might say," answered Clarence, "because I anticipated great
pleasure in a surprise; but I had another reason; it was this: I had
heard of my poor father's death, and I was painfully anxious to learn
if at the last he had testified any relenting towards me, and yet more
so to ascertain the manner of my unfortunate mother's fate. Both
abroad and in England, I had sought tidings of her everywhere, but in
vain; in mentioning my mother's retiring into a convent, you have
explained the reason why my efforts were so fruitless. With these two
objects in view, I thought myself more likely to learn the whole truth
as a stranger than in my proper person; for in the latter case, I
deemed it probable that your delicacy and kindness might tempt you to
conceal whatever was calculated to wound my feelings, and to
exaggerate anything that might tend to flatter or to soothe them.
Thank Heaven, I now learn that I have a right to the name my boyhood
bore, and that my birth is not branded with the foulest of private
crimes, and that in death my father's heart yearned to his too hasty
but repentant son. Enough of this: I have now only to request you, my
friend, to accompany me, before daybreak on Wednesday morning, to a
place several miles hence. Your presence there will be necessary to
substantiate the proof for which I came hither."