WILFRED CHICHESTER.
"So you see I'm not a witch, sir,—oh no, I'm only an old woman, with, among many other useful gifts, a very sharp eye for faces, a remarkable genius for asking questions, and the feminine capacity for adding two and two together and making them—eight. So, upon reading this letter, I made inquiries on my own account with the result that yesterday I drove over to a certain inn called the 'Coursing Hound,' and talked with your father. Very handsome he is too—as he always was, and I saw him in the hey-day of his fame, remember. Well, I sipped his ale,—very good ale I found it, and while I sipped, we talked. He is very proud of his son, it seems, and he even showed me a letter this son had written him from the 'George' inn at Southwark. Ha! Joan Beverley was to have married an ugly old wretch of a marquis, and John Barty is handsome still. But an inn-keeper, hum!"
"So—that was why my mother ran away, madam?"
"And Wilfred Chichester knows of this, and will tell Cleone, of course!"
"I think not—at least not yet," answered Barnabas thoughtfully,— "you see, he is using this knowledge as a weapon against me."
"Why?"
"I promised to help Ronald Barrymaine—"
"That wretched boy! Well?"
"And the only way to do so was to remove him from Chichester's influence altogether. So I warned Mr. Chichester that unless he forswore Barrymaine's society, I would, as Joan Beverley's son and heir to the Beverley heritage, prove my claim and dispossess him."
"You actually threatened Wilfred Chichester with this, and forgot that in finding you your mother's son, he would prove you to be your father's also?"