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The moment I reached the window there through the dim Summer twilight, once more from the trees, now as still as sleep, came the same figure. Mr Coningham saw me at the fire-lighted window, and halted. 'May I be admitted? he asked ceremoniously. I made a sign to him to ride round to the door, for I could not speak aloud: it would have been rude to the memories that haunted the silent house.
The keen air, the bright sunshine, the swift motion all combined to raise my spirits to an unwonted pitch; but it was a silent ecstasy, and I almost forgot the presence of Mr Coningham. When he spoke at last, I started. 'I thought from your letter you had something to tell me, Mr Cumbermede, he said, coming alongside of me. 'Yes, to be sure.
'Not a doubt of-that, if you set about it in earnest. 'How did he come to drop his surname? 'That has to be accounted for. 'It follows does it not? that I am of the same blood as the present possessors of Moldwarp Hall? 'You are but the relation is not a close one, said Mr Coningham. 'Sir Giles was but distantly related to the stock of which you come.
I turned to Mr Coningham, who had stood regarding me, and, pointing to the book, said: 'Look here, Mr Coningham. I cannot understand it. Here the date of the marriage is 1748; and that of all their letters, evidently written after the marriage, is 1747. He looked, and stood looking, but made me no reply. In my turn I looked at him.
'But what will you do with the old nest? 'Let the old nest wait for the old bird, Mr Coningham keep it to die in. 'I don't like to hear a young fellow talking that way, he remonstrated. 'You've got a long life to live yet at least I hope so.
'I, on the contrary, am delighted to be of any service to Sir Giles. 'But you don't expect us to slave all day as we did in the morning? said Clara. 'Certainly not, Miss Coningham. I am too grateful to be exacting. 'Thank you for that pretty speech. Come, then, Miss Brotherton, we must have a walk. We haven't been out-of-doors to-day.
I had not thought of Sir Giles in connection with the matter only of Geoffrey; and my heart recoiled from the notion of dispossessing the old man who, however misled with regard to me at last, had up till then shown me uniform kindness. In that moment I had almost resolved on taking no steps till after his death. But Mr Coningham soon made me forget Sir Giles in a fresh revelation of my uncle.
The acquaintance, in spite of some Opposition, grew with vigor, and rapidly ripened: and "at Fehan Church, Diocese of Derry," where the Bride's father had a country-house, "on Thursday 5th April, 1804, Hester Coningham, only daughter of John Coningham, Esquire, Merchant in Derry, and of Elizabeth Campbell his wife," was wedded to Captain Sterling; she happiest to him happiest, as by Nature's kind law it is arranged.
'If that is what you have come about, Mr Coningham, I rejoined, haughtily I dare say, for something I could not well define made me feel as if the dignity of a thousand ancestors were perilled in my own, I beg you will not say another word on the subject, for sell this land I will not. He was looking at me strangely.
At a ball in Derry he met with Miss Hester Coningham, the queen of the scene, and of the fair world in Derry at that time.
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