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Presently they came over a hill, and down upon a little bridge. Belward drew rein, and looked up the valley. About two miles beyond the roofs and turrets of the Court showed above the trees. A whimsical smile came to his lips. "Brillon," he said, "I'm in sight of home." The half-breed cocked his head. It was the first time that Belward had called him "Brillon" he had ever been "Jacques."
Meyerbeer, who had not yet discovered his man, though he had a pretty scandal well-nigh brewed. Count Ploare was no more, Gaston Belward was. Zoug-Zoug was in the country at Fontainebleau, working at his picture. He had left on the morning after Gaston discovered Andree. He had written, asking his nephew to come for some final sittings.
He was thinking of that afternoon in Gaston's bedroom, when his grandson had acted, before Lady Dargan and Cluny Vosse, Sir Gaston's scene with Buckingham. "Really, most mysterious, most unaccountable. But it's one of the virtues of having a descent. When it is most needed, it counts, it counts." "Against the half-breed mother!" Lady Belward added. "Quite so, against the was it Cree or Blackfoot?
Gaston had seen Alice Wingfield several times at church and in the village, and once when, with Lady Belward, he had returned the archdeacon's call; but she had been away most of the time since his arrival. She had impressed him as a gentle, wise, elderly little creature, who appeared to live for others, and chiefly for her grandfather.
And thus did a young man begin his career as Gaston Belward, gentleman. How that career was continued there are many histories: Jock Lawson's mother tells of it in her way, Mrs. Gasgoyne in hers, Hovey in hers, Captain Maudsley in his; and so on. Each looks at it from an individual stand-point.
At eight o'clock he appeared at Ridley Court, and bade his grandfather and grandmother good-bye. They were full of pride, and showed their affection in indirect ways Sir William most by offering his opinion on the Bill and quoting Gaston frequently; Lady Belward, by saying that next year she would certainly go up to town she had not done so for five years!
One day at the close of his second hunting-season there was to be a ball at the Court, the first public declaration of acceptance by his people; for, at his wish, they did not entertain for him in town the previous season Lady Belward had not lived in town for years.
"And you have never seen this key?" "Not to my knowledge." "It is very strange." He opened the box. "Now, here are private papers of Sir Gaston Belward, more than two hundred years old, found almost fifty years ago by myself in the office of our family solicitor. Listen." He then began to read from the faded manuscript. A mysterious feeling pervaded the room.
Suddenly he started. "Begad," he said, "where did you get it?" He rose. Gaston understood that he saw the resemblance to Sir Gaston Belward. "Before you were, I am. I am nearer the real stuff." The other measured his words insolently: "But the Pocahontas soils the stream that's plain." A moment after Gaston was beside the prostrate body of his uncle, feeling his heart.
He would take his future as it came: he would not drop this paper into the water. He smiled bitterly, got an envelope at a publichouse on the quay, wrote a few words in pencil on the document, and in a few moments it was on its way to Sir William Belward, who when he received it said: "Worthless, quite worthless, but he has an honest mind an honest mind!" Meanwhile, Andree was in Paris.
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