James so richly repaid these benefits, that in time he became the idol of his uncle, and the old gentlemen often sighed when he remembered that his nephew was not a Stanley. After reaping, in the devotion of his niece and the respectful affection of his nephew, the rich reward of his generous conduct toward them, Mr. Stanley died, and, without condition of any kind, bequeathed his large fortune to Mrs. Darrington and her son. Attached to the will was a letter, in which he made it his last request that James should add to his own the name of Stanley. The old gentleman knew James too well to make it a stipulation; he was aware that his fortune would be rejected on such terms, and he gave it to his adopted son, bore he the name of Stanley or Darrington. But this request—couched in terms of so much tenderness—made in such an unassuming way, seemed binding to the grateful James; and what he might have refused to his uncle’s pride he granted to his affection. Moreover, Stanley was his mother’s name, and James had always loved it for her sake.
Their hearts now yearned for home; but a year’s delay ensued, from some tedious formalities of the law, and that year they passed in roaming over the Continent. In Italy they were joined by Charles Ingleby, and after spending some months in that beautiful land—beautiful, though but the whitened sepulchre of departed greatness—they decided upon passing the summer at Baden-Baden. There they met with the Ashtons.
James soon found that the pretty American girl, whose lively manners made her the toast of the “hoch-begoine” visiters of Baden, was his old friend Kate. Except that she was older and prettier, she had not much changed since the days when they had gone berrying together; and James, whose republican heart had withstood not only the heraldic charms of the De Longuevilles and De Montmorencies, but had refused to surrender itself to “all the blood of all the Howards,” hung with breathless interest upon Catharine’s words, as by turns she dwelt upon the beauty, the talent or the thousand virtues of his once cherished Ada. His old passion awoke from its long slumber, and he was now as much in love with the ideal as he had once been with the reality. Catharine was ready to worship him for his romantic fidelity, but his conviction that he would know Ada again, after ten years’ separation, she laughed to scorn.
Meanwhile, Charles Ingleby’s heart had strayed, or been stolen, and after some months’ endurance of the loss, he announced the same to Miss Ashton, accused her of the theft, and modestly professed himself willing to compromise the matter, by accepting hers in exchange. Catharine had no alternative but to submit, and the matter went no further.
James became now so restless to return home that his mother offered to wind up his affairs for him, and proposed that he should sail with the Ashton family. James knew that his mother was quite as capable of managing business as she was of managing servants, and he accepted her offer with many thanks. It was then arranged that he should act as groomsman to Ingleby, while Ada should be bridemaid to Catharine, and it was on that occasion that Catharine imagined a plan for testing their remembrance of one another.
If neither recognized the other, James was to be punished for his audacity, by keeping his secret till his mother’s arrival; all of which, in the height of his presumption, he promised, with no more expectation of being called upon to fulfill his bond than had the Merchant of Venice.
He met Ada, and the impression she made was such as to occasion certain doubts in his mind of his boasted constancy. This unknown looked as he would have had Ada look; and he felt that if her mind at all resembled her person, he was in danger. When he discovered who she was, he was so transported with joy that he forgot to be humiliated for not knowing her at once. But we have seen how severely he was punished in the sequel by Ada’s cold reception of his advances, and his own inability to claim her regard by the slightest appeal to the past.
“And now,” said he, “I ask you, Charles, whether I have not been unjustly bound to secrecy? I contend that I did recognize her, for my heart knew her and loved her at once.”
“So you did,” replied Charles. “ ‘What’s in a name?’ Ada Somers or la belle Inconnue, James Stanley or James Darrington, were one and the same person, and both were constant to the object; how that object was called is of no importance.”
“Mere sophistry,” said Catharine disdainfully, but James appealed to Ada, and she reversed the decision.