‘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.’
‘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 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.’