"I know where all this comes from. My brother, who is an idiot, has married the daughter of a vulgar clergyman, who thinks in his ignorance that he can make his grandson, if he has one, an English nobleman. He'll spend his money and he'll burn his fingers, and I don't care how much money he spends or how much he burns his hands. I don't suppose his purse is so very long but that he may come to the bottom of it." This was nearly all that passed between Mr. Stokes and the Marquis. Mr. Stokes then went back to town and gave Mr. Battle to understand that nothing was to be done on their side.
The Dean was very anxious that the confidential clerk should be dispatched, and at one time almost thought that he would go himself. "Better not, Mr. Dean. Everybody would know," said Mr. Battle.
"And I should intend everybody to know," said the Dean. "Do you suppose that I am doing anything that I'm ashamed of."
"But being a dignitary——" began Mr. Battle.
"What has that to do with it? A dignitary, as you call it, is not to see his child robbed of her rights. I only want to find the truth, and I should never take shame to myself in looking for that by honest means." But Mr. Battle prevailed, persuading the Dean that the confidential clerk, even though he confined himself to honest means,
would reach his point more certainly than a Dean of the Church of England.
But still there was delay. Mr. Stokes did not take his journey down to Brotherton quite as quickly as he perhaps might have done, and then there was a prolonged correspondence carried on through an English lawyer settled at Leghorn. But at last the man was sent. "I think we know this," said Mr. Battle to the Dean on the day before the man started, "there were certainly two marriages. One of them took place as much as five years ago, and the other after his lordship had written to his brother."
"Then the first marriage must have been nothing," said the Dean.
"It does not follow. It may have been a legal marriage, although the parties chose to confirm it by a second ceremony."
"But when did the man Luigi die?"