One was the certificate of Laura Malcolm’s birth. The other five were letters addressed to Stephen Malcolm, Esq., Ivy Cottage, Chiswick. One of these, the latest in date, was from Jasper Treverton.
‘I am deeply grieved to hear of your serious illness, my poor friend,’ he wrote; ‘your letter followed me to Germany, where I have been spending the autumn at one of the famous mineral baths. I started for England immediately, and landed here half-an-hour ago. I shall come on as fast as rail and cabs can bring me, and indeed hope to be with you before you get this letter.
‘Yours in all friendship,
‘Jasper Treverton.
‘The Ship Hotel, Dover,
‘October 15th, 185—.’
The other letters were from friends of the past, like Jasper. One had enclosed aid in the shape of a post-office order. The rest were sympathetic and regretful refusals to assist a broken-down acquaintance. The writers offered their impecunious friend every good wish, and benevolently commended him to Providence. In every case the respectability and the respectful tone of Stephen Malcolm’s correspondents went far to testify to the fact that he had once been a gentleman. There was a deep descent from the position of the man to whom these letters were written to the status of Mr. Desrolles, the second-floor lodger in Cibber Street.
So far as they went his credentials were undeniable. Laura had recognised him as her father. What justification could John Treverton find for repudiating his claim? For the money the man demanded he cared not a jot; but it pained him unspeakably to accept this dissipated waif, soaked in alcohol, as the father of the woman he loved.
‘There is your hundred pounds, Mr. Mansfield,’ he said, ‘and since you have taught the little world of Hazlehurst to consider my wife an orphan, the less you show yourself here the better for all of us. Villages are given to scandal. If you were to be seen at this house, people would want to know who you are and all about you.’
‘I told you I should start for Paris to-morrow night,’ answered Desrolles, strapping his pocket-book, which was now distended to its uttermost with notes and gold. ‘I shan’t change my mind. I’m fond of Paris and Parisian ways, and know my way about that glorious city almost as well as you, though I never married a French wife.’
John Treverton sat silent, with his thoughtful gaze bent on the fire, apparently unconscious of the other man’s sneer.