"My mother met my father by accident, and ran away with him. She thought him a plain gentleman, and for two reasons he wished to keep their marriage private for a while. The first of these was that a rich relative had promised to hand him over a large fortune if he did not marry up to a certain age--an age he had not then reached, though he should reach it in a short time. The second was that a number of men to whom he owed money knew of this, and would have been down on him at once if they suspected him of having married.
"Accordingly the secret was kept, and the married pair went away on the Continent. Here my father caught sound of a rumour that his creditors were on the look-out for him; and, leaving instructions with his wife to remain in Brussels, he went away. She never saw her husband again; and when dying she told the nurse to bring me to my grandmother Mansfield, at Wyechester, at the same time giving in charge to the good woman, for my grandmother, some papers my father had left behind him, with instructions that they were not to be opened until a certain future time. My grandmother provided for me secretly, and had me ultimately put into the publishing house in London.
"It appears my father, on reaching England, being a man always variable and fickle in love, went straight to the village of Anerly, and tried to bribe the clerk to tear out of the register the leaf containing the entry of my father and mother's marriage; but he failed. This part I learn from Graham's story.
"May, I have been a long time preparing you for what is to come. Let it come all at once.
"Now this George Temple Cheyne, my father, was the only brother of the late Duke of Shropshire, and I am first cousin of the present Duke, and heir-presumptive to the titles and estates."
For a moment the woman looked into the girl's eyes. Then Miss Traynor said:
"Marion, dear, read the last bit over again."
The girl did so in a dull, monotonous voice.
"Marion, could it be that his head has been hurt, and he is wandering in his mind?" asked the old lady hopefully.
"But, aunt, the doctor might humour him by writing it down, yet he would hardly send it off to humour him."