"I must have some conversation with you, Charles, about this friend of yours. Do you know much of his history?"
"Oh, dear, yes!" replied his nephew. "I heard the whole of it from the Spanish ambassador at Rome, who is a relation of his. He is the son of Dona Eleanora Xamorça, the niece of Don Balthazar, a rich old grandee who died some time ago. During some of the troubles in Spain she was sent into a convent for protection, and thence ran away with and married an English gentleman of the name of Middleton. They soon quarrelled, however, and separated; and the old gentleman took her boy and brought him up as his own son."
"Do you happen to recollect the face of your old schoolfellow Henry Hayley?" asked Mr. Scriven.
"Good heaven! so he is!--very like indeed," said Charles. "I have often been puzzling myself to think who it is to whom he bears so great a resemblance."
"Great indeed," said Mr. Scriven, drily; "so great that I do not understand it. It is impossible, I suppose, that they can be the same person?"
Charles Marston laughed.
"Utterly, my dear uncle," he said. "Here is Fraga, who has known him from his boyhood; and depend upon it, Spaniards are not such disinterested people as to suffer a stranger to deprive them of a large fortune, without being very sure that he had a right to it. Now, I know that Middleton came in for one-third of old Balthazar's riches. You may ask any one in Spanish society. The thing is perfectly well known."
"Humph!" said Mr. Scriven, and walked away.
He had suggested thoughts to his nephew's mind, however, which did not so speedily retire. The likeness, when it had been once pointed out, struck him more and more every moment. The strange intimacy which had arisen between the young officer and Lady Anne, to whom he was almost a stranger, and the evident regard which existed between him and Maria, whose heart was little likely to be captivated at first sight, were all extraordinary circumstances, which seemed to favour the suspicions that his uncle entertained, and were with difficulty accounted for on any other ground. But then, on the other hand, the information he had received, in regard to his friend's birth and history, was so precise, and had been given by persons necessarily so well informed, that it was impossible for him to doubt that the young officer was exactly what he represented himself to be. Charles was in a maze of perplexity, and remained so all the evening, till at length Lady Anne beckoned him to her side again, and playfully scolded him for his thoughts.
Charles laughingly evaded the attack, but she asked--