"Who is to know when he disclosed himself to you? For aught the world knows, you might have been aware of your relationship for years."
"Then I was living a lie for years!"
"Do not wind round the subject so! And remember that, in very fact, you have done no harm. A week ago you did not know this secret."
"Well," Penlyn said, springing up from his chair, "things must take their course. If it comes out it must; if not, I shall never breathe a word to any one. Fate has cursed me with this trouble, I must bear it as best I can. The only thing I wish is that I had never gone to that hotel. That would also tell against me if anything was known."
"It was a pity, but it can't be helped. Now, go to Belmont, but be careful to hold your tongue."
Lord Penlyn did go to Belmont, having previously sent a telegram saying he was coming, and he travelled down in one of the special trains that was conveying a contingent of fashionable racing people to the second day at Ascot. But their joyousness, and the interest that they all took in the one absorbing subject, "What would win the Cup?" only made him feel doubly miserable. Why, he pondered, should these persons be so happy, when he was so wretched? And then, when they were tired of discussing the racing, they turned to the other great subject that was now agitating people's minds, the murder in St. James's Park. He listened with interest to all they had to say on that matter, and he found that, whatever the different opinions of the travellers in the carriage might be as to who the murderer was, they were all agreed as to the fact that it was no common murder committed for robbery, but one done for some more powerful reason.
"He stood in some one's light," one gentleman said, whom, from his appearance, Lord Penlyn took to be a barrister, "and that person has either removed him from this earth, or caused him to be removed. I should not like to be his heir, for on that man suspicion will undoubtedly fall, unless he can prove very clearly that he was miles away from London on Monday night."
Penlyn started as he heard these words. His heir! Then it would be on him that suspicion would fall if it was ever known that he was the heir; and, as he thought that, among his brother's papers, there might be something to prove that he was in such a position, a cold sweat broke out upon his forehead. How could he prove himself "miles away from London" on that night? Even the sleepy porter could not say at what time he returned to the hotel! Nothing, he reflected, could save him, if there was any document among the papers (that Stuart was probably ransacking by now) that would prove that he and Cundall were brothers.
He thought that, after all, it would be better he should tell Ida, and he made up his mind by the time he had arrived at the nearest station to Belmont, that he would do so. It would be far better that the information, startling as it might be, should come from him than from any other source. And while he was being driven swiftly over to Sir Paul's villa, he again told himself that it would be the best thing to do. Only, when he got to Belmont, he found his strength of mind begin to waver. The news of Cundall's dreadful death had had the effect of entirely breaking up the baronet's Ascot party. Every one there knew on what friendly terms the dead man had been both with father and daughter, and had been witness to the distress that both had felt at hearing the fatal tidings--Ida, indeed, had retired to her room, which she kept altogether; and consequently all the guests, with the exception of Miss Norris, had taken their departure. That young lady, whose heart was an extremely kind one, had announced that nothing should induce her to leave her dear friend until she had entirely recovered from the shock, and she had willingly abandoned the wearing of her pretty new frocks and had donned those more suited to a house of mourning; and she resigned herself to seeing no more racing, and to the loss of Mr. Fulke's agreeable conversation, and had devoted herself to administering to Ida. But, as Mr. Fulke and young Montagu had betaken themselves to an hotel not far off and had promised that they would look round before quitting the neighbourhood, she probably derived some consolation from knowing that she would see the former again.
"This is a dreadful affair, Penlyn!" the baronet said, when he received his future son-in-law in the pretty morning-room that Ida's own taste had decorated. "The shock has been bad enough to me, who looked upon Cundall as a dear friend, but it has perfectly crushed my poor girl. You know how much she liked him."