"And I cannot help thinking she has. When is the funeral to take place?"
"The day after to-morrow. Meantime, had you not better take up your residence in S—— Square? The house is yours, and probably everything in it."
"No, Kenrick; I could not stand the house, nor could Mrs. Wilton, I am sure. I shall remain at the hotel where we now are. After the funeral we must examine the poor old man's letters and papers; we may find some clue to the real heir among them."
Meantime an outline of the story began to be told at the clubs and dinner-tables, now throbbing with the convulsive life of the season.
To the older members of society the name of Wilton had once been familiar, but Ralph had little beyond regimental renown and a high reputation at the Horse Guards. Now, however, that he was supposed to have inherited the estates as well as the title of Lord St. George, relatives and connections gathered round him "thick as leaves that fall in Valambrosa."
Ella was at first bewildered, as well as surprised, at the numerous cards and polite inquiries for Lord and Lady St. George, until Wilton unfolded the whole history for her enlightenment, and expended some bad language on the annoyance of being thus saddled with a title he could not support. Still he was sufficiently alive to the necessity of his position to insist on his wife's supplying herself with proper and fashionable mourning at the most select milliner's he could find out. The result delighted him and appalled Ella. The garments were certainly becoming, but never in her simple life had she seen so much money paid for clothes.
The operation of examining the papers and letters of one lately alert and ready to defend the privacy of his inner life is full of mournfulness. Even when the deceased has been neither well known nor loved, there is deep pathos in the silent appeal of death. All the secrets of the now empty "prison-house" lie bare and at the mercy of a successor, who may be the last to whom the released tenant would have exposed them. Although Ralph Wilton was far from being a sentimentalist, he felt this keenly when, assisted by Mr. Kenrick, he proceeded to examine the late viscount's escritoire, and various caskets, cabinets, and jewel-cases, in hopes of finding some trace of his possible successor. There lay, in profusion, the graceful trinkets bestowed with lavish hand on his wife and child, exquisite enamels, carved onyx clasps and brooches, costly fans, old-fashioned bijouterie—all the beautiful artistic trifles which accumulate in an ancient and wealthy family. The more important jewels were of course kept at the bank, but quantities of valuable nothings were scattered about the rooms—miniatures of fair women and lovely children, and one beautiful face in every stage of development, from an infant peeping out from its rich surrounding of lace and satin to a stately, gracious demoiselle in court dress. These portraits were all in rooms and cabinets the most distant, dust-covered, and evidently rarely opened. All bore somewhere about the frame the initials E. L. A., sometimes plain, sometimes entwined in a monogram.
"These are all portraits of Miss St. George," said the lawyer, in the law tone they both unconsciously adopted. "You can scarcely wonder that such a marriage should almost have driven her father mad. He hardly thought royalty good enough for her."
"What, in Heaven's name, made her throw herself away on a foreigner?" exclaimed Wilton. "How could she be so mad?"