When the facts had been thrust down the aristocratic gorge, Anson turned to pleasanter topics. He informed Lord Vanstone, who bore the title as the third son of a marquis, that his niece's future was more important than his lordship's dignity. He must eat mud for her sake, and willingly withal.
Various firms of solicitors set to work, and, marvelous to relate, Lord Vanstone was able to write and inform his half-sister that certain speculations in which he had invested her fortune were turning out well. A cash payment of two thousand pounds would be made to her at once, and she possessed an assured income of at least one thousand five hundred pounds per annum during the remainder of her life.
The poor lady had heard these fairy tales before; indeed, some such story of more gorgeous proportions had converted her consols into waste paper.
But a lawyer, not Lord Vanstone's, sent her a check for the larger amount, and, at a subsequent interview, affirmed the statements made by her unreliable relative.
So she went back to her caste, and her caste welcomed her with open arms, and the dear woman thanked Providence for the decree that her daughter might now accept the attentions of any man, no matter how rich he might be, for she saw the drift of Philip's wishes, and, if Evelyn were married to him, surely all their previous trials might be deemed fortunate.
She little dreamed that imperious Philip had ordered matters his own way.
It was not to his thinking that his bride should come to him from the genteel obscurity of Maida Crescent. He would give her a great position, worthy of the highest in the land, and it was better for her that he should woo and win her from the ranks of her order.
It should not be imagined that he was hasty in his decision. To his mind, Evelyn and he were known to each other since they were children. It was not by the wayward caprice of chance that he met her on the night of the meteor's fall, nor again, that he came to her assistance a second time after the lapse of years.
It was his mother's work. He was faithful to her memory—she to her trust. Never did his confidence waver. On the day that Evelyn consented to marry him he showed her his mother's photograph, and told her his belief.
The girl's happy tears bedewed the picture.