‘Now, Owen, are you sure?’
‘As sure as I was that it was a moonstruck man that slept in my room in Woolstone-lane. I knew that Cynthia’s darts had been as effective as though he had been a son of Niobe!’
‘I don’t believe it yet,’ cried Honor; ‘an honourable man—a sensible girl! Such a wild thing!’
‘Ah! Queen Elizabeth! Queen Elizabeth! shut up an honourable man and a sensible girl in a cedar parlour every evening
for ten days, and then talk of wild things! Have you forgotten what it is to be under twenty-five?’
‘I hate Queen Elizabeth,’ said Honor, somewhat tartly.
He muttered something of an apology, and resumed his book. She worked on in silence, then looking up said, rather as if rejoicing in a valid objection, ‘How am I to know that this man is first in the succession? I am not suspecting him of imposition. I believe that, as you say, his mother was a Charlecote, but how do I know that she had not half-a-dozen brothers. There is no obligation on me to leave the place to any one, but this youth ought not to come before others.’
‘That is soon answered,’ said Owen. ‘The runaway, your grandfather’s brother, led a wild, Leather-Stocking life, till he was getting on in years, then married, luckily not a squaw, and died at the end of the first year, leaving one daughter, who married Major Randolf, and had this only son.’
‘The same relation to me as Humfrey! Impossible! And pray how do you prove this?’
‘I got Currie to make notes for me which I can get at in my room,’ said Owen. ‘You can set your lawyer to write to the places, and satisfy yourself without letting him know anything about it.’