The latter was standing.
"You told me I had no father--" An imperious arm stretched toward him.
"Give me the letter." He moved to obey, and then checked himself.
"This is my father's writing, is it not ?" "No, no! It's a lie, Pierre!" But Pierre stood with the letter held behind his back, and the first doubt in his life stood up darkly in his eyes.

Father Victor sank slowly back into his chair, his gaunt frame trembling.
"Read on," he commanded.
And Pierre, white of face, read on: "So I got a idea that I had to write to you, Pierre.

There ain't nothing I can make up to you, but knowing the truth may help some.
Poor kid, you ain't got no father in the eyes of the law, and neither did you have no mother, and there ain't no name that belongs to you by rights.
"I was a man in them days, and your mother was a woman that brought your heart into your throat and set it singing.

She and me, we were too busy being just plain happy to care much about what was right or wrong; so you just sort of happened along, Pierre.

Me being so close to hell, I remember her eyes that was bluer than heaven looking up to me, and her hair, that was copper with gold lights in it.
"I buried Irene on the side of the mountain under a big, rough rock, and I didn't carve nothing on the rock.