There were great rejoicings in Vaughan-street upon Herbert’s return. The house was en fête. It was lighted up as for a grand entertainment; when the door was opened men in smart livery were seen ranged within the hall. Hanlon came out first, and received Herbert as he descended from his cab. He would have carried his old comrade and master in bodily on his shoulders; but as Herbert objected, ‘the Boy’ contented himself with the portmanteaus. At the foot of the stairs Miss Ponting, with new ribbons in her cap, met the traveller with a precisely-worded speech of welcome, and led him to the drawing-room,[185] where the dowager awaited him. She was dressed magnificently in dark velvet and costly lace, amidst which gleamed many diamonds of the finest water. This was all in Herbert’s honour and of the great occasion.

‘Hail, Sir Herbert Farrington! all hail!’ cried the old lady, using the language, but having little of the appearance of a witch in Macbeth.

‘My dearest grandmother,’ Herbert said, ‘I am so glad to see you again, and looking so well. Why, you are like a queen!’

‘I am a queen dowager receiving the young king,’ she replied, as she made him sit by her side. ‘Let me look at you well, my sweet boy; you are my own son’s son. I knew it; I felt it all along, and now there is no longer any doubt, and you will soon come into your own.’

[186]

‘Please, dear grandmother, be more explicit. Is there anything new? You threw out vague hints in your last letter; but I am still quite in the dark.’

‘Light will soon be let in on you, my sweet boy. At last, after all this dreary waiting and long suspense, information has reached Mr. Bellhouse—from the other side of the grave, I believe—’

Herbert looked keenly at the dowager. Was her mind again becoming unhinged?

‘I cannot account for it otherwise. The letter was from my Herbert, my long-lost Herbert. Of that I have no doubt; and is he not dead, dead these many many years? Mr. Bellhouse laughed at it, sneered at it and the information it gave. Yet he was wrong; his prejudices misled him. He could not deny that there was something in it all when we found that it put us on[187] the right track. Now we have the only evidence that was wanting to complete the case.’

‘Not evidence of the marriage, surely? Can it be possible that you have discovered that?’

‘Authentic evidence of the marriage.’

And she told him the whole story as it has been given in a previous chapter.

‘Now you understand, Herbert, why I give you your title. It is yours, clearly, by right. You must assume it at once.’

‘Not quite yet, I think,’ Herbert replied gently, fearing his refusal might vex her; ‘I would still rather wait. It would look so foolish to have to go back again. Suppose we do not gain our cause.’

‘But we must and shall win it; of that I have not the shadow of a doubt.’

‘I trust in Heaven we shall,’ Herbert[188] said, in a voice so earnest and yet so sad that his good old friend, with a woman’s unerring intuition, guessed that he was suffering and sore at heart.

‘Something has happened to grieve you, Herbert, dear? You have been ill-used; you are unhappy? Tell me, at once, every word.’

Herbert was willing enough. Young men crossed in love generally ask for nothing better than an appreciative and consolatory listener.

‘You love her, truly, deeply, with all your heart and soul?’ said the dowager, when she had heard all about Edith Prioleau from beginning to end.

‘Indeed I do, and have done so ever since I saw her first.’

‘And you think she returns it?’

‘I cannot be quite positive, of course.[189] But I should be hopeful were I certain I did not lose ground. But when one is miles away, and there are so many others close by her, encouraged and approved of by her parents, and with ever so many opportunities, I begin to be half-afraid. She may give way; she may change her mind. There is an old Spanish proverb, “The dead and those gone away have no friends.” She will soon forget me, perhaps; she may have done so already.’

‘Stuff and nonsense!’ cried the old lady, with great spirit. ‘“Faint heart”—you know the rest—is a better proverb than that. Win her! Of course, you shall win her, as you will the law-suit, the title, estates, and everything else.’

‘What does Mr. Bellhouse say? Is he sanguine?’

‘You know what lawyers are;’ and[190] from this Herbert gathered that doubts and difficulties still stood in the way, notwithstanding Lady Farrington’s confident hopefulness.

‘Mr. Bellhouse is very tiresome at times. He is a very self-opinionated man, almost too slow and cautious for me. It was only at my most earnest entreaty that he would take any action at all.’

‘You have commenced the suit then?’

‘Yes; and given Sir Rupert notice to quit,’ said the Dowager, rubbing her hands in high glee.

‘Has he replied?’

‘He came here in person, but I would not see him. Then he went to Mr. Bellhouse, who declined to discuss the matter with him. The last thing was a letter from him, imputing the basest motives to all of us, threatening a counter-action for conspiracy[191] or something—and that’s where it stands now. But with God’s help we shall beat him, dear; we shall beat him, and he will wish that he had given in.’

Next day Herbert paid an early visit to Mr. Bellhouse in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and found the old lawyer, although in manner cordial and kind, somewhat disheartening in tone.

‘Do not expect too much, Mr.—shall I still say Larkins? Yes? I agree with you, it is so much better not to be premature. Do not be over-confident, Mr. Larkins, I beg of you; the disappointment would be so bitter if we failed after all.’

‘Failure is quite on the cards, I presume?’ Herbert asked, coolly enough.

‘Unhappily, yes. There are flaws, not many, but one or two serious ones, in the chain of evidence. I have no moral doubt[192] myself that the marriage we have discovered is truly that of your father and mother. But moral proofs are not enough in a court of justice. Our difficulty will be to establish identity between this Corporal William Smith and the missing Herbert Farrington.’

‘Mrs.............