“My dear madam, pray don’t agitate yourself; pray take things quietly. Would you like to sit in this easy-chair?”
“No, thank you. What are easy-chairs to me? I want to tell my story.”
“So you shall—so you shall. I trust your boy is not ill?”
“He is very ill; he is—good God! I fear he is dying. I have come to you as the last faint chance of saving him.”
“My dear Mrs. Lovel, you make a mistake. I am a lawyer, not a physician. ’Pon my word, I’m truly sorry for you, and also for Miss Griselda. Her heart is quite set on that boy.”
“Listen! I have sinned. I was tempted; I sinned. He is not the heir.”
“My good lady, you can scarcely know what you are saying. You would hardly come to me with this story at the eleventh hour. Miss Lovel tells me you have proofs of undoubted succession. I was going to Avonsyde this afternoon to look into them, but only as a form—merely as a form.”
“You can look into them now; they are correct enough. There were two brothers who were lineally descended from that Rupert Lovel who quarreled with his father two hundred years ago. The brothers’ names were Rupert and Philip. Philip died and left a son; Rupert lives and has a son. Rupert is the elder of the brothers and his son is the true heir, because—because——”
Here Mrs. Lovel rose to her feet.
“Because he has got what was denied to my only boy—glorious health and glorious strength. He therefore perfectly fulfills the conditions of the late Squire Lovel’s will.”