At this information, which seemed to be the sealing of his condemnation with Mary, the heart of Thaddeus was pierced to the core. Unacquainted until this moment with the torments attending the knowledge of being calumniated, he could scarcely subdue the tempest in his breast, when forced to receive the conviction that the woman he loved above all the world now regarded him as not merely a villain, but the meanest of villains.
He returned home indignant and agitated. The probability that Pembroke Somerset had listened to the falsehood of Euphemia, without suggesting one word in defence of him who once was his friend, inflicted a pang more deadly than the rest. Shutting himself within his apartment, tossed and tortured in soul, he traversed the room. First one idea occurred and then another, until he resolved to seek redress from the advice of Lady Tinemouth. With this determination he descended the stairs, and telling Mrs. Robson he should leave London the ensuing day for Lincolnshire, begged her not to be uneasy on his account, as he went on business, and would return in a few days. The good woman almost wept at this intelligence, and prayed Heaven to guard him wherever he went.
Next morning, having risen at an early hour, he was collecting his few articles of wardrobe to put into his cloak-bag for his meditated short visit, when going to open one of the top drawers in his chamber, he found it sealed, and observed on the black wax the impress of an eagle. It was a large seal. Hardly crediting his eyes, it appeared to be the armorial eagle of Poland, surmounted by its regal crown. Nay, it seemed an impression of the very seal which had belonged to his royal ancestor, John Sobieski, and which was appended to the watch of his grandfather when he was robbed of it on his first arrival in England.
Thaddeus, in a wondering surprise, immediately rang the bell, and Mrs. Robson herself came up stairs. He hurriedly but gently inquired "how the drawer became not only locked as he had left it, but fastened with such a seal?"
Mrs. Robson did not perceive his agitation, and simply replied, "While his honor was in that horrid place, and after the attempt of Mr. Jackson to get possession of his property, she had considered it right to so secure the drawer, which she believed contained his most valuable pictures, and the like. So, having no impression of her own big enough, she went and bought a bunch of tarnished copper-seals she had seen hanging in the window of a huckster's shop at the corner of an ally hard by, one of them appearing about the size she wanted. The woman of the shop told her she had found them at the bottom of a tub of old iron, sold to her a while ago by a dustman; and as, to be sure, they were damaged and very dirty, she would not ask more than a couple of shillings for the lot, and would be glad to get rid of them!"
"So, sir," continued Mrs. Robson, with a pleased look, "I gave the money, and hastened home as fast as I could, and with Mrs. Watts by my side to witness it, you see I made all safe which I thought you most cared for."
"You are very thoughtful for me, kindest of women!" returned Thaddeus, with grateful energy; "but let me see the seals—for it is possible I may recognize in the one of this impression, indeed, a relic precious to my memory!"
Mrs. Robson put her hand into her pocket, and instantly gave them to him. There were three, one large, two small, and strung together by a leather thong. The former massive gold chain was no longer their link, and the rust from the iron had clouded the setting; but a glance told Sobieski they were his! He pressed them to his heart, whilst with glistening eyes he turned away to conceal his emotion. His sensible landlady comprehended there was something more than she knew of in the recognition (he never having told her of the loss of his watch, when he had saved her little grandchild from the plunging horses in the King's Mews;) and from her native delicacy not to intrude on his feelings, she gently withdrew unobserved, and left him alone.
About half an hour afterwards, when she saw her beloved lodger depart in the stage-coach that called to take him up, her eyes followed the wheels down the lane with renewed blessings.
His long journey passed not more in melancholy reveries against the disappointing characters he had met in revered England than in affectionate anticipations of the moment in which he should pour out his gratitude to the maternal tenderness of Lady Tinemouth, and learn from her ingenuous lips how to efface from the minds of Miss Dorothy Somerset and her angel-like niece the representations, so dishonoring, torturing, and false, which had been heaped upon him by the calumnies of the family in Harley Street.