"Not at all," Sir Harry answers, decidedly.
"Then surely no one will believe it," she says, thoughtfully. "You remember Vera Campbell's grave has been found empty."
"Yes, but you remember you may be called on to prove your identity with Vera Campbell," he answers, gravely.
"Leslie Noble unhesitatingly acknowledges me as his wife," she argues.
"I do not know whether that fact would weigh strongly with a jury," he answers, thoughtfully. "To claim you, Lady Vera, so young, so lovely, above all, so wealthy, as his wife, cannot be without its subtle temptation to such a man as Leslie Noble. Rumor says that the Clevelands have almost beggared him by their lavish and ruinous extravagance, and that he hated the woman who bore his name. What more natural than that he should jump at the choice of exchanging his crumbling fortunes and despised partner for rank and wealth, and beauty and youth? Though I do not doubt your identity for one moment, Lady Vera, I am convinced that it could scarcely be proved in a court of law by the oath of Leslie Noble."
As he pauses, coloring, and deeply sorry that it has seemed necessary to speak so plainly to her whom fate has already so rudely buffeted, she looks up at him with forced calmness and self-restraint.
"What, then, do you deem it necessary that I should do in my own defense, Sir Harry?" she inquires.
"In times of peace prepare for war," he quotes, sententiously. "Do not understand me to mean that I apprehend immediate trouble, Lady Vera. Perhaps in my friendliness and interest in you, I have magnified the danger. But I would advise that you be ready in case an attack is made. And the first step I would advise is to thoroughly examine the papers left by your father, the late earl. I can only think that he concealed the truth from you from fear of shocking your sensitive mind too greatly. But I can scarcely credit that he would fail to leave on record the narrative of so strange and important an event in your life. I say, therefore, if such a document be in existence, it is judicious that you should put yourself in immediate possession of it."
Lady Vera, rising impulsively, goes over to this true and noble friend, and presses his hand warmly between both her own soft, white ones.