Captain Hampton had listened with growing excitement to the story.
'Then the child was not drowned, and Linda is Dorothy's twin sister! I wonder that a suspicion of the truth never occurred to their father. Had I known all these circumstances you are telling me I am sure I should have suspected it. I was convinced by this scoundrel's manner, when he had an altercation with Mr. Hawtrey at Epsom and threatened him, that he had already done him some serious injury, though Mr. Hawtrey, when I spoke to him, declared he was not conscious that he had suffered in any way at his hands, unless two or three rick-burnings had been his work.
'Certainly, no thought that he could have had any hand in the catastrophe that caused the death of his wife had ever occurred to him. Had I known that the body of the infant had never been really identified, or that of its nurse found, I should have suspected the truth as soon as I found that Truscott and Dorothy's double were acting together. What an infamous scoundrel, and what a life for the girl. But he never could have foreseen that the two sisters would grow up so alike.
'No. He told the poor girl what his intentions had been. The woman who stole her died when the child was four years old, and he then placed her with a woman whom he had known as a barmaid. She was not only given to drink, but was mixed up with thieves and coiners. His expectation was that the girl so placed would necessarily grow up a young thief, and go to the bad in every way; and the vengeance to which he had looked forward was that Mr. Hawtrey should at last be informed that this degraded creature was his daughter. He had the declaration of the woman who stole her signed by herself in presence of three witnesses. Of course it made no allusion to his agency in the affair, but described it as simply an act of revenge on her part. He intended to testify only to the fact that he had known this woman, and at her death had taken the child she had left behind her and placed it with another woman as an act of pure charity. Of course, the part he had played in the matter would have been suspected—indeed, he would have lost half his pleasure had it not been so—but there would have been no proof against him.'
'It is a horrible business,' Ned Hampton said; 'a fiendish business, and he had no real ground for any hostility against Mr. Hawtrey. He would have had the appointment his father had held had it not been for his own misconduct. His own father, on his deathbed, implored Mr. Hawtrey not to appoint his son, as he would certainly bring disgrace upon his name.'
'Truscott represented that he had been scandalously treated and his life ruined by Hawtrey. I have no doubt the matter really was as you say, but he had certainly persuaded himself that he was a terribly ill-used man, and spoke with exultation over the revenge he had taken. It was about four years ago that on his going to see the girl in the court in which he had placed her—'
'It was Piper's Court, at Chelsea.'
'Why, how on earth did you know that?'
'I have a lad with me who was brought up in that very court, and who recognised her as soon as he saw her here; in fact he had remarked on the likeness directly he saw a photograph of her sister.'
'Well, when Truscott noticed the likeness he saw that properly worked there was money to be made out of it, so he took her from the woman she had been with and put her with one who had been a governess, but who had come to grief somehow and was nearly starving. This woman was to educate her, but was to teach her nothing that could interfere with his plans for her. I mean nothing of religion or what was right or wrong, or anything of that sort. When he sent her to the woman, the girl had promised she would do whatever he wanted her to do if he would have her educated. So, when the time came, she was perfectly ready to carry out his scheme. She watched Miss Hawtrey come out from her house several times, noted the dress she wore, and had one made precisely similar in every respect, and, as you know, carried out her part perfectly.'