He did not deem it advisable just then to ask her any question or make any comment at all. And within another minute or two he had passed out of the postern, surrendering the Castle of Loquhariot, for the time being, to one who had no claim or title to it.
But, as he stopped beyond the drawbridge to light the pipe he had mechanically pulled out, he pursed up his lips as though to whistle. And, "What proof can I produce!" he exclaimed, moving on again with the cold pipe between his teeth, his head bent, perplexed to the last degree.
The walk through the darkling woods to the village and the cold, clean air cleared his wits a little. He found Ambrizette huddled over the fire in the best room at the Jura Arms, and, having bespoken supper and a bed for himself, went on along the shore road to think things out, if he could.
Only half an hour before, he had been congratulating himself on the fact that his troubles were nearing an end. And now—
"It's been nothing but trouble ever since I first saw that damned advertisement," he remarked to himself, recalling step after painful step of the way he had travelled to where he was.
A few months before he had seen and answered an anxious advertisement in an American paper for any surviving relative, no matter how distant, of the Jura family, he had invested all of his scarce capital in a cattle-run in Texas which seemed to promise to pay quick profits. And, in spite of all that the English lawyers who had replied to his letter could say to tempt him, he had remained quite firm in his wise resolution to stay there and reap those profits before crossing the Atlantic in pursuit of his further fortune; until a smart junior partner of theirs had paid him a flying visit at the ranch, and proved to him how foolishly he was acting against his own interests.
For it seemed, after due investigation and proof positive of his distant kinship with the family, that there could be only one life between him and the title of Earl of Jura, with all that pertained thereto—a life which even the very conservative English Court of Chancery was by then disposed to presume extinct.
The astute young lawyer had told Carthew all the facts which his firm had managed to ferret out concerning the late countess's disappearance and death. It seemed, humanly speaking, impossible that her child could have survived her. Justin Carthew had thought it all over and an accident had settled the question for him. His pony came down with him one day and he was badly trampled by the steers he had been heading. His doctor sentenced him to six months' rest—out of the saddle. As soon as he was able to move he raised a mortgage on the ranch and made for London. That mortgage was almost due by now, and his expected profit on the run had faded into a stiff loss during his absence.
Messrs. Bolder & Bolder, the lawyers aforesaid, had made it clear to him from the first that, while they had the utmost faith in the outcome of their exertions on his behalf, they could not see their way to place their services and special knowledge at his disposal except on a spot-cash basis; that, in short, he must provide in advance the money to foot their bill. He had done so, and they, in return, had not failed to implement all their promises. Even now he could not feel that they had dealt unfairly by him.
And the balance of his bank account had been eaten up by his expedition to Africa in search of more authentic record of the ex-dancer countess's death and as to the fate of her child. He had taken that somewhat rash step, too, of his own free will and for his own personal satisfaction. He was personally aware now that both the countess and her daughter were dead; but—he could bring forward no proof at all of that fact, and, as Bolder & Bolder had politely pointed out to him, his personal testimony alone was that of an interested party and worthless to them or anyone else.