Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1910-04-15

''Why SOP 1 asked.
at have a secret which 1 dare not
keep from you. Promise me that you
will not reveal it,"
There was no need for me to prom
Use to keep a professional secret, as
| you know, but 1 gave my word to re-
spect her confidence. Then she told
me that my having said that If she
should have a child the event would
likely be the means of drawing her
husband back TO her had given her
the idea Of foisting upon him the
child of another. At a founding
asylum a boy baby was procured who
had come there dressed in fine linen
and lace. She had taken the boy TO
her home and written her husband
that he was a father. He had re-
turned to her at once.
You viii admit that this was not a
pleasant secret for a physician to
have, In the first place, had prom
ised to keep it; in the second, it had
restored a wife to health; in the third,
1t had been the beginning of happy
family. I advised Mrs. Ward now
that a child had really been born to
them to confess her deceit to her hus-
band, relying on his generosity and
his love for her, enhanced, / hoped, by
the knowledge that she had perpetu-
ated it from her love for him. My adj
vice was not needed. She told me that
to confess would be to send her hus-
band away, never to return. In vain
1 argued that she would live a life
-, % p . lfc1nxray-ir,cr q
fraud and the longer the delay the
worse would be the consequences
when the discovery was made. 1 saw
nothing for me to do under the cir
cumstances but to wash my hands Of
the matter and leave her to her fate,
whatever that fate might be.
Another girl was born to the pair,
and after that children kept coming
all girls-till there were five children,
including the founding. He was a
fine little chap, with a loving and low
able disposition.
Everard Ward-he was named for
ure. He would have liked to go to
college, but was so necessary to the
happiness of the rest Of the family
that they could not spare him from
home. Ward senior was doing a fair
business. which he owned, and longed
to have Everard with him. So the
boy, too fond Of his father to disap-
point him, entered his counting room
and was soon ablesto relieve the head
Of the concern Of many annoying de-
tails.
On the day Everard was twenty-one
years old q man called on him and told
him that he would like to have him go
out with him where he could impart a
secret. The man was over sixty years
old and evidently a gentleman. He
took Everard to a private room IN a
lawyers office, closed the door and
said to him:
you are not Everard Ward You
are Lawrence FarweI. You are a
founding. 1 promised your mother
that / would keep track of you and If
certain persons who were heirs to GER
tain property died before you I would
advise you Of the fact and enable you
to claim that which such deaths would
place In your hands. You were born
In wedlock and today, your birthday,
are entitled to a property worth about
100000"
The rest OF the information the gen.
tleman gave Everard-who his real IA
ther and his real mother We're and why
he was Authorizations not necessa-
rily form part of this story. That it
was all true the young man had no
reason to doubt, for his informer show
ed him proofs which he had carefully
kept for years and offered to turn over
to him the fortune he referred 20 and
of which he was executor. Eversrd
instead of being made happy over the
discovery appeared to be very much
panied. He asked why his reputed
mother had adopted him, but on this
point the only information the gentle
man could give him was that his sup
posed parents had been living apart
and that on the coming of the child
they had been reunited. For any fur
Their information the gentleman refer
red him to me. the family physician,