CHAPTER XXVII
THE SEARCH FOR EDITHA
Three months later saw Earle Wayne firmly established as the master of Wycliffe, and over all other property belonging to the former Marquis of Wycliffe and Viscount Wayne. His mother’s character was cleared of every imputation of evil, her body removed to the vaults of her ancestors, where it rested as peacefully and quietly as the noblest of all the race of Vance, and the friends of her youth now looked back with sadness and regret upon the sufferings of the beautiful injured girl, which their own sneers and coldness had helped to aggravate.
All this change made no small stir in the social world.
Paul Tressalia first of all went down to Winchelsea, where he interviewed the old sexton of St. John’s Chapel, who told him exactly the same story that he had told Earle seven years before. He next sought Miss Isabel Grafton, and craved permission to peruse her father’s diary.
She received him with the same graciousness that she had accorded Earle, and talked long and freely with him upon the strange, sad events of Marion Vance’s history, while he in return related much regarding Earle’s manly battling with the cold world, omitting, of course, that sad epoch wherein he, too, had suffered so much for another’s wrong.
In a simple, manly fashion he mentioned the fact that the establishment of his young kinsman’s identity dethroned him from Wycliffe and one of the proudest positions in England, and Miss Grafton’s expressions of sincere regret and sympathy were the sweetest and most comforting sounds that had fallen on his ear since that night when Editha Dalton had crushed his last hope of ever winning her love.
He was convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt that Earle was the rightful heir, and he gave up everything to his possession without a demur; and then, out of the nobility of his nature, took upon himself the defense of Marion Vance’s character.
He caused a notice of the marriage to be inserted in all the leading papers, with the date of the event, wrote a brief and simple account of the manner in which it had occurred, the wrong that had been attempted but fortunately outwitted, and how at last the real heir, her son, had been restored to his rights.
It was not long after this before the whole world—Marion’s world—knew of her innocence, and immediately recognized and cordially received Earle as Marquis of Wycliffe and Viscount Wayne.
This accomplished, Earle’s impatient heart told him he now might return to Editha and claim the reward of all his patient waiting, and to make one last effort to discover the criminals for whom he had so unjustly suffered.