The elder Lovel frowned. He was silent for a moment; then he laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder.
“Look me in the face, lad, and answer me a question.”
“Yes, father.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Why, of course. Can you doubt it?”
“Then go to bed and to sleep, and believe that nothing shall be done which in the slightest degree shall tarnish your honor. Go to bed, boy, and sleep peacefully, but just put one thought under your pillow. Right is right and wrong is wrong. It sometimes so happens, Rupert, that it is not the right and best thing to be simply magnanimous.”
Rupert smiled.
“I am quite certain you will decide as my mother would have liked best, sir,” he said, and then he took his candle and left the room.
The greater part of the night the elder Lovel sat up. Early the next morning he paid the family lawyers a visit.
“I have made up my mind, Mr. Baring,” he said to the younger of these gentlemen. “For the next few months I shall remain in England, but I shall not bring my son forward as an heir to the Avonsyde property until I can claim for him unbroken and direct descent. As I told you yesterday, there are two unexpected obstacles in my way. I have sustained a loss—I don’t know how. An old tankard and a parcel of valuable letters cannot be found. I am not leaving a stone unturned to recover them. When I can lay my hand on the tankard and when, even more important, I can produce the letters, I can show you by an unbroken chain of evidence that my boy is the eldest son of the eldest son in direct descent. I make no claim until I make all claim, Mr. Baring.”