“There certainly has been foul play in connection with the Brewster property. I always felt that the man was a rascal, but he is a very clever one, and you may be very sure that he has so covered his tracks and burned his bridges behind him that, unless some unforeseen evidence comes to light, it would be very difficult to depose him from his position.”
“I cannot credit that story regarding the woman who calls herself Mrs. Brewster,” said Gerald reflectively. “I would give a good deal to have our old friend, Plum, examine that certificate of hers, and those old letters, which she claims were written by Mr. Brewster before their marriage.”
“I fear you will never be gratified, my boy,” said his friend; “the case has been settled, and no one has any authority to rake it over again, unless, as I said before, some new evidence should be forthcoming, or some barefaced fraud detected which would implicate the victors in the recent trial. If we had been in New York at the time the case was in court, I should have followed it with a great deal of interest.”
Gerald said no more about the matter at that time. All the same, he made a secret resolve that immediately upon his return he would go to New Haven and examine the records of marriage-certificates, to assure himself that matters were exactly as they had been represented.
He could not—he would not believe that there had ever been an ignoble secret in his former employer’s life. He almost felt it a personal injury, and resented it as such, that his fair name should have been so smirched before the public. He felt, too, that Mrs. Manning, as the nearest of kin, was being deeply wronged by having Mr. Brewster’s large fortune so diverted from its proper channel.
The week following found him, with Lady Bromley and Mr. Lyttleton, on the broad Atlantic, and fast approaching the shores of their native land.
Upon their arrival in New York her ladyship took a suite of rooms in a hotel, saying that she wanted a place of her own in the city, where she could go and come, making visits here and there, as she liked. She, however, persuaded Gerald to take a room in the same house with her.
“I shall want an escort,” she smilingly told him, “for I mean to go about a good deal, and it will be so convenient to have you near—that is, if you will not feel that I am imposing upon you.”
Gerald assured her that it would give him great pleasure to attend her wherever she might feel inclined to go; and he was thankful to her for looking to him for companionship, for it seemed to him that it would be almost more than he could bear to be left to himself among the familiar scenes which reminded him so forcibly of Allison.