Lord Burdon nodded. "So he is. The name comes back to me."
"This is from him—to you. It's all right. He says it's all right, Maurice. He's the lawyer. He knows. He admits it."
"Sounds as though he'd committed a crime. What does he admit?"
She was very happy, so she laughed. "Listen!" and she read him the letter in which, in stilted, lawyer like terms, Matthew Pemberton (as it was signed) formally advised him of the death in action on the northwestern frontier of India, and of his succession to the barony and entailed estates. The firm of Pemberton, it appeared, had for many generations enjoyed the honour of acting for the house of Burdon, and, acting on Jane Lady Burdon's instructions, Matthew Pemberton desired to propose an interview "here or at your lordship's residence, as may be most convenient to your lordship."
"Maurice!" Lady Burdon exclaimed, and handed him the letter; and when he had read it, "There! There's no doubt now, is there?"
He had frowned over it as though it troubled him. At her words he looked up and smiled at her beaming face and patted her hand. "Why, you never had any doubt, had you?" he asked.
She gave the slightest possible shiver; but with it shook off the recollection that had caused it. "Oh, I don't know," she answered. "I do believe I had; yes, I had. I couldn't realise it sometimes. There was nothing—nothing to go on. Now there is, though!" And she touched the letters that were the magic carpet arrived to wing her from the delirium of that night toward the amazement that night had threatened.
She exclaimed again, "Now there is!" and, pushing back her chair, rose vigorously to her feet, casting aside forever (so she told herself) that nightmare dream and animatedly breaking into "plans." Too animated to be still, too excited to eat, gaily, and with a commanding banter that rendered him utterly happy, she easily influenced her husband, against his purpose, to bid Mr. Pemberton make the proposed interview at Miller's Field, not Bedford Row. "'At your lordship's residence,'" she laughed. "It's his place to do the running about, not yours. And tell him—I'll help you to write the letter—tell him to come the day after to-morrow, not to-morrow. Don't let him think we're bursting with eagerness."
"By gum, he'd better not see you, then," Lord Burdon said grimly.
She gave him a playful pinch. "Oh, I'll do the high and haughty stare all right," she told him, and she laughed again and ran gaily humming to the Hon. Rollo Letham in the garden.