"I have admitted that I was in the wrong," said Derrington, impatiently, "spare me further sermons."
"I beg your pardon," said George, quietly. "But please touch as lightly as possible on these matters. We will admit that you acted according to your lights."
"False lights," said his grandfather, sadly. "However, we need speak no more on that particular point. Mrs. Jersey said that she knew where the marriage was celebrated, adding that if I did not give her an annuity she would go to Lockwood and help him to prove that you were my legitimate grandson and heir."
"Did she say if the marriage was celebrated in England or abroad?"
"No, sir; Mrs. Jersey was a remarkably clever woman, and if my son Percy had married her she would have made a man of him."
"Then she really was in love with my father?"
"Very deeply in love--as she told me herself. But she did not regard his memory with such veneration as to desire to aid his son. She was content that you should lose your rights, provided that I paid her an annuity. I tried in vain to learn from her where the marriage had been celebrated. She refused to open her mouth, so I allowed her an annuity of five hundred a year----"
"That was a large sum," interposed George.
Derrington shrugged his shoulders. "Much larger than I could afford, my good sir," he said, "but Mrs. Jersey dictated her own terms. I arranged that the money should be paid through my lawyers, and she vanished."
"Where to?"