“How I cannot explain!” repeated Ned often, when in the cosy library at Darlington Hall, conversing with the old knight in long winter evenings. “How! Why, tell me all.”
“You are too young yet; one day you will find out all if you live to be old enough!”
“If I only live to be old enough,” thought Ned; “often and often those words sound ominously; but if I am spared I’ll find it out before I am twenty-one years old. I am man enough now for anything; and if any wretch still lives who has acted the traitor towards my father, let him tremble.
“There has always been bad blood between the Redgills and my father’s family, eh! so the old knight says; then my name is not—it cannot be Warbeck!”
Wildfire Ned was almost driven mad at the thought of this grand family secret.
“Why do they conceal my real name? Who knows, I might be the son of some lord!”
With these thoughts ringing in his head Ned Warbeck directed his footsteps to the town house of the old knight, which was situated in Mayfair.
The servants rejoiced at his return, but Ned was moody.
Sir Richard was out, but where he had gone to no one could tell.
He heard the news about his brother Charley, and of Redgill’s villany, and he swore like a true tar thereat.