"No, indeed," cried Harry, warmly. "She would have risked everything to have it acknowledged. It puts my conduct in an awfully cold-blooded light, but I hope you don't think me utterly ungrateful."
"As to that, the less said the better," returned Lord Bromley, coolly.
Dutton turned away abashed and deeply wounded, for he really was attached to the relative who had been his best friend and benefactor from infancy to manhood. Lord Bromley slowly left the room, and, sending for his niece, endeavoured to explain to her the astounding facts that Bluebell was the daughter of his disinherited son, and had been married to Dutton for nearly two years.
There was scarcely room in Mrs. Barrington's mind to grasp this new aspect of affairs, it being already taken up with Kate's shocking discovery of the heir, flirting in a secluded summer-house with the treacherous governess. Very earnestly, therefore, she tried to convince her uncle that he must be deceived, and that Bluebell was an impostor and an adventuress.
"There's not a shade of doubt about her identity," contested Lord Bromley "I have known for some time whom she was. Indeed, Lydia, you were my first informant when you told me where you had taken her from. Parker had reported that Theodore's daughter was with some people of the name of Markham, and immediately found out accidentally that she was no longer there and here is further proof"—and he placed before her the portrait that he had carried away. It was difficult to [unreadable]. Convinced against her will, and deprived of the power of giving Bluebell immediate warning, Mrs. Barrington [unreadable] fall back upon her own room, pull down the blinds and take refuge in petite sante, till prepared to face her emminent dependent in so new and unwelcome a position.
Certainly this day of elucidation was not a pleasant one. Everybody appeared in a changed point of view, and was feeling its awkwardness. Harry and Bluebell, hardly knowing if they had a right to remain there, wandering disconsolately about, like a modern Adam and Eve awaiting expulsion from Paradise.
Kate felt baffled and dangerous,—angry at her cousin having slipped so smoothly through her fingers, and jealous of his wife.
Lord Bromley, though deeply incensed with Harry, was longing to keep Bluebell, whose every glance and gesture recalled his secretly lamented son. Lady Calvert was on the point of departure with her daughter; and the facts having percolated through the household, all the maids got sick headaches from sympathetic excitement.
Dutton had had a very stormy interview with his cousin when he rushed after her from the arbour. Kate was determined to betray them, and he vainly tried to induce her to be silent. On one condition only would she promise secrecy—that Bluebell should give immediate warning, and that he should never speak to her again. But Harry only laughed, while Kate urged everything she could think of—ruin to his prospects, his uncle's anger, etc.
"It is no business of yours," reiterated Dutton. "If you say anything about it, you'll soon see you have made a fool of yourself, and the little you do know is by prying and listening."