“It appears to me that compliments are entirely unnecessary in this affair,” I said. “You are endeavouring to thrust yourself upon me as my wife, in order, I suppose, to achieve some object you have in view. But I tell you once and for all, madam, that any such attempt will be futile. To speak plainly, I don’t know you, neither have I any desire to add you to my list of acquaintances.”
“Well,” she cried; “of all the stories I’ve ever heard, this is the most extraordinary!”
“I think, madam, I may say the same,” I remarked coldly. “Your story is the wildest and most incredible that I’ve ever heard. Last night, as a bachelor, I dined with friends in Kensington, and left at a late hour, calling at a house in Chelsea on my way home to Essex Street. To-day I awake to be told that I am the owner of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice; master of this house—in Devonshire, I believe, isn’t it; and your lawful husband. Now, if you think me capable of swallowing such a pack of palpable fictions as these, you must certainly consider me absolutely insane, for none but a madman would give credence to such a tissue of lies.”
“Doctor Britten considers that your brain is unbalanced, because you do not know the truth,” she said calmly. “I quite agree with him.”
“He’s a fool—a drivelling idiot,” I cried, forgetting myself in the heat of the moment, and using an unwriteable word. Mention of that pottering old fossil’s name was to me as a red rag to a bull. “I surely know who and what I am!” I cried.
“No, my dear Wilford, that’s just it. You don’t know who you are,” the woman answered with a smile.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Then perhaps you’ll kindly inform me. All this may be very amusing to you, but I assure you that to me it’s the very reverse.”
“I can only tell you who you are as I know you to be,” answered the powdered-faced, doll-like old lady, whose attempts at juvenile coquetry sickened me.
“Go on,” I said, preparing myself for more attempts to befool me.
“I ask you first whether you are not Wilford Heaton, of Heaton Manor, near Tewkesbury?”