"He was my uncle. My father's name was Sextus Arnott. My grandfather had seven sons and no daughters. He was an eccentric man, I believe--I never saw him; and he called them all by Latin numerals. My father was the sixth son, Sextus; the brother to whom you refer, the seventh and youngest, Septimus."
"Dear, dear! how extraordinary! almost wonderful!"
"I don't know why you should call it wonderful. It was perhaps curious; but, in this world, people do curious things."
"Quite so!--exactly!--not a doubt of it! It was the coincidence which I was speaking of as almost wonderful, not your grandfather's method of naming his sons; I should not presume so far. And where, may I further be allowed to ask, is your father now, and his brothers?"
"They are all dead."
"All dead! Dear! dear!"
"My father's brothers all died when they were young men. My father himself died three years ago--at Scarsdale, in Cumberland. My mother died twelve months afterwards. I am their only child."
"Their only child! You must suffer me to say, Miss Arnott, that it almost seems as if the hand of God had brought you to this house and moved me to intrude myself upon you. I take it that you can furnish proofs of the correctness of what you say?"
"Of course I can prove who I am, and who my father was, and his father."
"Just so; that is precisely what I mean--exactly. Miss Arnott, Mr Stacey, the senior partner in our firm, resides in Pembridge Gardens, Bayswater. I have reason to believe that, if I go at once, I shall find him at home. When I tell him what I have learnt I am sure that he will come to you at once. May I ask you to await his arrival? I think I can assure you that you shall not be kept waiting more than an hour."