“I am not thinking of the estate now, sir. I want to meet this man—I want to be brought face to face with him. I’ll soon bring him to his knees, and make him confess. The villain!—the murderous wretch! I—I beg pardon, ladies. You do not know the truth. This man, Dan Portway, struck me down, and, believing me dead, has imposed upon you all.”
“There! I knew it all the time,” cried Mrs Hampton emphatically.
“My dear Rachel!”
“Oh, don’t talk to me, Phineas. I knew he couldn’t be our George Harrington. A nasty, low-minded, drinking wretch, whose presence I would not have tolerated for a minute if it had not been for Gertrude here. I knew it all the time; something seemed to say to me, as soon as I set eyes upon him, ‘This man is a cheat.’”
“My dear madam,” cried their visitor, smiling, “now you have set eyes on me I hope there is no such whisper to your inner self.”
“Indeed there is not, sir.”
“My dear Rachel?” cried the lawyer firmly, “this is extremely indiscreet. We are face to face with a very great difficulty.”
“No difficulty at all. Wait till the wretched man comes back, and then send him about his business.”
“You are talking like an inconsistent child, Rachel,” said the lawyer sternly. “Mr George Harrington—”
“The assumed Mr George Harrington,” interposed the new-comer.