"It may be so, Mr. Pettigrew, but we will hope not."
"Very well, my dear," the lawyer said. "I will send for a trustworthy man at once, and set him to work collecting information regarding the occupant of the cottage. And now I have a point upon which I wish to ask your opinion. I have this morning received a letter from this man's solicitor, asking if we intend to undertake the funeral of the body which the coroner's jury have found to be that of Walter Rivington; and announcing that, if we do not, his client will himself have it carried out."
"What do you think, Mr. Pettigrew?" Hilda said hesitatingly. "We may be wrong, you know, and it may be Walter's body."
"I have been thinking it over," the lawyer replied, "and I must say it is my opinion that, as we have all stated our conviction that it is not, we should only stultify ourselves if we now undertook the funeral and put a stone, with his name on, over the grave. If we should at any time become convinced that we have been wrong, we can apply for a faculty to remove the coffin to the family vault down in Warwickshire."
"If we could do that I should not mind," Hilda said; "but even the possibility of Walter being buried by the man who we firmly believe was the cause of his death is terrible."
"Yes, I can quite understand your feelings, but I think that it is necessary that the family should make a protest against its being supposed that they recognize the child, by declining to undertake the funeral. No protest could well be stronger."
"If you think that, Mr. Pettigrew, we certainly had best stand aside and let that poor child be buried by this man."
Two days later they were driving in the Row. It was Hilda's first appearance there since the General's death, and, after talking it over with Netta, she now appeared there in order to show that she was perfectly convinced that the child which had been found in the canal was not her little cousin. The details of the proceedings of the coroner's court had, of course, been read by all her friends, and her appearance in the park would be the best proof that she could give that the family were absolutely convinced that the body was not that of Walter.
Miss Purcell and Netta were with her. The latter had on, as usual, a thick veil. This she always wore when driving through any locality where she might meet John Simcoe.
"That is the man," Hilda said to her in a sharp tone; "the farther of those two leaning on the rail the other side of the road."