"Yes, that was the case," Sir Paul said. "It was at Lady Chesterton's ball that he proposed to her."
They talked for some little time further on the desire she had expressed to see the murderer brought to justice, and Penlyn said he feared she was exciting herself too much over the idea.
"Yes, I am afraid so," Sir Paul said; "yet, I suppose, the wish is natural. She looks upon herself as, in some way, the person to whom his death was first made known, and seems to think it is her duty to try and aid in the discovery of the man who killed him. Of course, it is impossible; and she can do nothing, though she has begged me to try everything in my power to assist in finding his assassin. I would do so willingly, for I admired Cundall's character very much; but there is also nothing I could do that the police cannot do better."
"Of course not, but still her wish is natural," Penlyn said, and then he said "Good-bye" to Sir Paul also, and went back to London.
As he sat in the train on the return journey, he wondered what fresh trouble and sorrow there could possibly be in store for him over the miserable events of the past week, and he also wondered if he ever again would know peace upon this earth! It was impossible to help looking back to a short month ago, to the time before that discovery had been made at the inn at Le Vocq, and to remembering how happy he had been then, how everything in this world had seemed to smile upon him. He had been happy in his love for Ida, happy in the position he held in the eyes of men, happy without any alloy to his happiness. And then, from the moment when he had found that there was another son of his father in the world, how all the brightness of his life had changed! First had come the knowledge of that brother alive somewhere, whom, thinking he was poor and outcast, he had pitied; then the revelation that that brother, far from being the abject creature he imagined, was in actual fact the rightful owner of the position he usurped; and then the horror and the misery of the cruelly barbarous death that brother had been put to, directly after revealing himself in his true light. And, as horrible almost as all else were, the lies, and the secrecy, and the duplicities with which he had environed himself, in the hopes of shielding everything from the eyes of the world. Lies, and secrecies, and duplicities practised by him, who had once regarded truth and openness as the first attributes of a man!
And there was one other thing that struck deeply to his heart; the bitter wickedness of a man, with such nobility of nature as his brother had shown, being cruelly stabbed to death. His life had been one long abnegation of what should have been his, a resignation of the honour of his birthright, so that he, who had taken his place, should never be cast out of it; an abnegation that had been crowned by an almost sublime act, the act of forcing himself to witness the happiness of the one, who had taken so much from him, with the woman he had long loved. For, that he had determined to resign all hopes of her, there was, after the letter he had written, no doubt. And, as he thought of all the unselfishness of that brother's nature, and of his awful death, the tears flowed to his eyes, and, being alone, he buried his head in his hands and wept as he had wept once before. "If I could call him back again," he said to himself, "if I could once more see him stand before me alive and well, I would cheerfully go out a beggar into the world. But it cannot be, and I must bear the lot that has fallen on me as best I can."
He reached his house early in the evening, and the footman handed him a letter that had been left by a messenger but a short time before. It ran as follows.
"Grosvenor Place, June 12th, 188-
"My Lord,
"In searching through the papers of my late employer, Mr. Walter Cundall, I have come across a will made by him three years ago. By it, the whole of his fortune and estates are left to you, your names and title being carefully described. I have placed the will in the hands of Mr. Fordyce, Mr. Cundall's solicitor, from whom you will doubtless hear shortly.