Liza came up with, red eyes, bringing the evening papers and a letter. The papers contained long reports of the trial and short editorials reproving the public for its interest in such a poor impostor. Some of them contained sketches of the prisoner and of the distinguished persons recognised in court. “The stage was represented by——,” and then a caricature of herself.
The letter was from Aunt Rachel:
“My Dear, My Best-Beloved Glory: I know how much your kind heart will be lowered by the painful tidings I have to write to you. Lord Storm died on Monday and was buried to-day. To the last he declared he would never consent to make peace with John, and he has left nothing to him but his title, so that our dear friend is now a nobleman without an estate. Everybody about the old lord at the end was unanimous in favour of his son, but he would not listen to them, and the scene at the deathbed was shocking. It seems that with his dying breath and many bursts of laughter he read aloud his will, which ordered that his effects should be sold and the proceeds given to some society for the protection of the Established Church. And then he told old Chaise that as soon as he was gone a coffin was to be got and he was to be screwed down at once, 'for,' said he, 'my son would not come to see me living, and he sha'n't stand grinning at me dead.' The funeral was at Kirkpatrick this morning, and few came to see the last of one who had left none to mourn him; but just as the remains were being deposited in the dark vault a carriage drove up and an elderly gentleman got out. No one knew him, and he stood and looked down with his impassive face while the service was being read, and then, without speaking to any one, he got back into the carriage and drove away. The minute he was gone I told Anna he was somebody of consequence; and then everybody said it must be Lord Storm's brother and no less a person than the Prime Minister of England. It seems that the sale is to come off immediately, so that Knockaloe will be a waste, as if sown with salt; and, so far as this island is concerned, all trace of the Storms, father and son, will be gone for good. I ever knew it must end thus! But I will more particularly tell you everything when we meet again, which I hope may be soon. Meantime I need not say how much I am, my dear child, your ever fond—nay, more than fond—devoted auntie.
“Rachel.”
XI.
“Yes,” said Rosa, across the dinner table, “the sudden fall of a man who has filled a large space in the public eye is always pitiful. It is like the fall of a great tree in the forest. One never realized how big it was until it was down.”
“It's awful! awful!” said Glory.
“Whether one liked the man or not, such a downfall seems hard to reconcile with the idea of a beneficent Providence.”