“Look at that and compare it with the miniature, and then tell me if the two are not likenesses of the same person, notwithstanding the difference made by the mustache on one face and the full beard on the other.”
She had handed the two pictures first to Palma, who gazed for a moment, and then nodded assent, and passed them around to her companions.
“But who is the man?” inquired Mrs. Duncan, while Palma and Miss Christiansen seconded the question by their eager looks.
“Friends, he was one of Messrs. Wallings’ clients, but is so no longer. He has managed to deceive two astute lawyers, to impose upon society, to get hold of a name and an estate that does not belong to him, and to marry the most beautiful woman in the country and take her off to Europe in triumph, while his own deserted wife and child, whom he believed he had safely disposed of by murder, sailed with him in the same ship, unsuspected by him, unsuspicious, also, it seems, of her faithless, murderous husband’s presence there. He is an adventurer of many aliases, a gambler, a forger, a swindler, a perjurer, a bigamist and an assassin.”
Mrs. Walling paused a moment to look upon her shocked audience, and then continued:
“That is the man. What his name is I cannot tell you. We knew him as Mr. Randolph Hay, of Haymore. You have all heard of him under that name, and the éclat of the splendid festivities at the Vansitart mansion on the occasion of his marriage with Miss Leegh has scarcely died away. Jennie Montgomery knew him as Capt. Kightly Montgomery; my young friend, Mr. Hay, knew him as Geoffrey Delamere, Esq.; and gamblers of Grizzly Gulch as Gentleman Geff.”
She paused again to mark the effect of her words.
But no one spoke; the women were shocked into silence and pallor. At length, however, Ran murmured:
“This is too horrible!”
“You know that the man whom society has been lionizing for the last six months is a fraudulent claimant of the Haymore estate; you should also know that this gentleman here, whom I introduced to you as simply Mr. Hay, is really the true Randolph Hay, of Haymore, and a few weeks at furthest will see him invested with his manor.”