"I will answer you, Robert," said the hunter. "I was one of those who loved your mother. How could any one help loving her? As beautiful as a dream, and a soul of pure gold. She married another, but when she was lost at sea something went out of my life that could never be replaced in this world. You have replaced it partly, Robert, but not wholly. It seemed fitting to the others that, being what I was, and loving Gabrielle de Clermont as I had, I should take you. I should have taken you anyhow."
Robert's head swam, and there was a mist before his eyes. He was thinking of the beautiful young mother whom he could not remember.
"Then I am by blood a De Clermont, and yet not a De Clermont," he said.
"You're a De Clermont by blood, by right, and before all the world," said Willet. "I've a letter from Benjamin Hardy in New York, stating that the records have been found in the ruins of the burned church on the coast of Brittany, where the marriage was performed. Their authenticity has been acknowledged by the French government and all the members of the De Clermont family who are in France. Copies of them have been smuggled through from France."
"Thanks to the good God!" murmured St. Luc.
"And Adrian Van Zoon? Why has he made such war against me?" asked Robert.
"Because of money," replied Willet. "Your father was a great owner of shipping, inherited, as Richard Lennox was a young man under thirty when he was lost at sea. At his death the control of it passed into the hands of his father's partner, Adrian Van Zoon. Van Zoon wanted it all, and, since you had no relatives, he probably would have secured it if you had been put out of the way. That is why you were safer with me at Albany and in the woods, until your rightful claims could be established. Benjamin Hardy, who had been a schoolmate and great friend of your father, knew of this and kept watch on Van Zoon. Your estate has not suffered in the man's hands, because, expecting it to be his own, he has made it increase. Jonathan Pillsbury knew your history too. So did Jacobus Huysman, in whose house we placed you when you went to school, and so did your teacher, Master Alexander McLean."
"I had powerful friends. I felt it all the time," said Robert.
"So you had, lad, and it was largely because they saw you grow up worthy of such friendship. You're a very rich man, Robert. There are ships belonging to you on nearly every sea, or at least there would be if we had no war."
"And a Marquis of France—when I die," said St. Luc.