“I don't see that,” broke in Jack. “We are not asking to hear our neighbor's secrets, and I take it we are of an age to be intrusted with our own.”
“You speak sharply, sir,” said Sedley, “but you speak well. I would only observe that the most careful and cautious people have been known to write letters, very confidential letters, which somehow get bruited about, so that clews are discovered and inferences traced which not unfrequently have given the most serious difficulties to those engaged in inquiry.”
“Have no fears on that score, Mr. Sedley,” said Jack. “There are no four people in Europe at this moment with fewer correspondents. I believe I might say that the roof of this house covers our whole world.”
“Jack is right, there,” added Augustus. “If we don't write to the 'Times' or the 'Post,' I don't see to whom we are to tell our news.”
“George has n't even a pulpit here to expound us from,” cried Jack, laughingly.
“You have an undoubted right to know what is strictly your own concern. The only question is, shall I be best consulting your interests by telling it?”
“Out with it, by all means,” said Jack. “The servants have left the room now, and here we are in close committee.”
Sedley looked towards Augustus, who replied by a gesture of assent; and the lawyer, taking his spectacles from his pocket, said, “I shall simply read you the entry of my notebook. Much of it will surprise, and much more gratify you; but let me entreat that if you have any doubts to resolve or questions to put, you will reserve them till I have finished. I will only say that for everything I shall state as fact there appears to me to be abundant proofs, and where I mention what is simply conjecture I will say so. You remember my condition, then? I am not to be interrupted.”
“Agreed,” cried Jack, as though replying for the most probable defaulter. “I 'll not utter a word, and the others are all discretion.”
“The case is this,” said Sedley. “Montague Bramleigh, of Cossenden Manor, married Enrichetta, daughter of Giacomo Lami, the painter. The marriage was celebrated at the village church of Portshandon, and duly registered. They separated soon after,—she retiring to Holland with her father, who had compromised himself in the Irish rebellion of '98. A son was born to this marriage, christened and registered in the Protestant church at Louvain as Godfrey Lami Bramleigh. To his christening Bramleigh was entreated to come; but under various pretexts he excused himself, and sent a costly present for the occasion. His letters, however, breathed nothing but affection, and fully recognized the boy as his son and his heir. Captain Bramleigh is, I know, impatient at the length of these details, but I can't help it. Indignant at the treatment of his daughter, Lami sent back the gift with a letter of insulting meaning. Several letters were interchanged of anger and recrimination; and Enrichetta, whose health had long been failing, sunk under the suffering of her desertion, and died. Lami left Holland, and repaired to Germany, carrying the child with him. He was also accompanied by a younger daughter, Carlotta, who, at the time I refer to, might have been sixteen or seventeen years of age. Lami held no intercourse with Bramleigh from this date, nor, so far as we know, did Bramleigh take measures to learn about the child,—how he grew up, or where he was. Amongst the intimates of Lami's family was a man whose name is not unfamiliar to newspaper readers of some thirty or forty years back,—a man who had figured in various conspiracies, and contrived to escape scathless where his associates had paid the last penalty of their crimes. This man became the suitor of Carlotta, and won her affections, although Giacomo neither liked nor trusted Niccolo Baldassare—”