"It would be a poor return for your candour if I were to doubt your voluntary statement, Hawkehurst," answered the stockbroker. "No; I shall not withdraw my confidence. And if your researches should ultimately lead to the advancement of my stepdaughter, there will be only poetical justice in your profiting more or less by that advancement. In the mean time we cannot take matters too quietly. I am not a sanguine person, and I know how many hearts have been broken by the High Court of Chancery. This grand discovery of yours may result in nothing but disappointment and waste of money, or it may end as pleasantly as my brother and you seem to expect. All I ask is, that poor Charlotte's innocent heart may not be tortured by a small lifetime of suspense. Let her be told nothing that can create hope in the present or disappointment in the future. She appears to be perfectly happy in her present position, and it would be worse than folly to disturb her by vague expectations that may never be realised. She will have to make affidavits, and so on, by-and-by, I daresay; and when that time comes she must be told there is some kind of suit pending in which she is concerned. But she need not be told how nearly that suit concerns her, or the extent of her alleged claim. You see, my dear sir, I have seen so much of this sort of thing, and the misery involved in it, that I may be forgiven if I am cautious."
This was putting the whole affair in a new light. Until this moment Valentine had fancied that, the chain of evidence once established, Charlotte's claim had only to be asserted in order to place her in immediate possession of the Haygarth estate. But Mr. Sheldon's cool and matter-of-fact discussion of the subject implied all manner of doubt and difficulty, and the Haygarthian thousands seemed carried away to the most remote and shadowy regions of Chanceryland, as by the waves of some legal ocean.
"And you really think it would be better not to tell Charlotte?"
"I am sure of it. If you wish to preserve her from all manner of worry and annoyance, you will take care to keep her in the dark until the affair is settled—supposing it ever should be settled. I have known such an affair to outlast the person interested."
"You take a very despondent view of the matter."
"I take a practical view of it. My brother George is a monomaniac on the next-of-kin subject."
"I cannot quite reconcile myself to the idea of concealing the truth from Charlotte."
"That is because you do not know the world as well as I do," answered
Mr. Sheldon, coolly.
"I cannot imagine that the idea of this claim would have any disturbing influence upon her," Valentine argued, thoughtfully. "She is the last person in the world to care about money."
"Perhaps so. But there is a kind of intoxication in the idea of a large fortune—an intoxication that no woman of Charlotte's age could stand against. Tell her that she has a claim to considerable wealth, and from that moment she will count upon the possession of that wealth, and shape all her plans for the future upon that basis. 'When I get my fortune, I will do this, that, and the other.' That is what she will be continually saying to herself; and by-and-by, when the affair results in failure, as it very likely will, there will remain a sense of disappointment which will last for a lifetime, and go far to embitter all the ordinary pleasures of her existence."