Miss Malliver came from somewhere and left the room.

“There is just one thing,” resumed her ladyship, “upon which, if only out of respect to the feelings of my late husband, I feel bound to insist. While in this neighbourhood, you will be careful as to what company you show yourself in.

Richard was dumbstruck! Before he had half recovered himself, she had again resumed.

“If the title were ceded to the property,” she went on, as if talking to herself, “it might be a matter for more material consideration. Any compensation would only be by courtesy. And suppose I referred my grave doubts of your story to the courts.”

“My father has acknowledged me!”

“And repudiated you, sent you from the house, bequeathed you nothing! Everybody knows your father—my late husband, I mean—would risk anything for my annoyance. Had he really believed you his son, do you imagine he would have left you penniless?”

“The proofs that satisfied him remain.”

“The testimony, that is, of those most involved in the case—whose very proof is a confession of a felony!”

“A confession, if you will, that my own aunt was the nurse that carried me away—of which there are proofs.”

“Has anyone seen those proofs?”

“My father has seen them, lady Ann.”

“You mean sir Wilton?”

“I do. He accepted them.”

“Has he left any document to that effect?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Who presented these proofs, as you call them?”

“I told sir Wilton where they had been hidden, and together we found them.”

“Where?”

“In the room that was the nursery.”

“Which you occupied for months while working at your trade in the house, and for weeks again before sir Wilton dismissed you!”

“Yes,” answered Richard, who saw very well what she was driving at.

“And where you had opportunity to place what you chose at any time! Excuse me, I am only saying what a lawyer would say in court.”

“You wish me to understand, I suppose, that you regard me as an imposter, and believe I put things, for support of my aunt’s evidence, where my father and I found them?”

“I do not say so. I am merely trying to make you see how the court would regard the affair—how much appearances would be against you. At the same time, I confess I have all along had grave doubts of the story. You, of course, may have been deceived as well as your father—I mean the late baronet, my husband. In any case, I will not admit you to be what you call yourself until you are declared such by the law of the land. I will, however, make a proposal to you. Pledge yourself to make no defence if, for form’s sake, legal proceedings should be judged desirable, and in lieu of the baronetcy I will pay you five thousand pounds.”

“To do as you ask me would be to endorse your charge against my father, that he lied in acknowledging me simply to give you annoyance! And I have the same objection with regard to my uncle and aunt, of whom you would make liars and conspirators!”