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Templeton, frowning, perplexed, "this does not make you what you claim to be. Rather does it show you to be his late lordship's " "There's more to come," said Mr. Caryll, and placed another document before the secretary. It was an extract from the register of St. Etienne of Maligny, relating to his mother's death.
"Where do you dwell when in France, sir?" inquired my lord, as if to make polite conversation. Mr. Caryll lulled by his musings into carelessness, answered truthfully, "At Maligny, in Normandy." The next moment there was a tinkle of breaking glass, and Mr. Caryll realized his indiscretion and turned cold.
He looked up, an expression on his face which seemed to show that he could not at the moment think who her ladyship might be. Then as the picture of that bedaubed, bedizened and harsh-featured Jezebel arose in his mind to stand beside the sweet girl image of his mother as he knew her from the portrait that hung at Maligny he laughed again. "No, not from her ladyship," said he.
"I do not believe that you are the son of Mademoiselle de Maligny," she said at last. "I never heard that my lord had a son; I cannot believe there was so much between them." Mr. Caryll stared, startled out of his habitual calm. Rotherby turned to her with an exclamation of surprise. "How?" he cried. "You knew, then? My father was " She laughed mirthlessly.
He had contrived to save his fortune from the wreck of James' kingship, and this was safely invested in France, in Holland and elsewhere abroad. With a portion of it he repurchased the chateau and estates of Maligny, which on the death of Antoinette's father had been seized upon by creditors.
Templeton read the date aloud "1692" and then the name of the deceased "Antoinette de Beaulieu de Maligny. What of it?" he demanded. "You will understand that when I show you the paper I took from this desk, the paper that I obtained as a consequence of my violence to Mr. Green. I think you will consider, sir, that if ever the end justified the means, it did so in this case.
The pause had been sufficient to enable Mr. Caryll to recover, and for all that his pulses throbbed more quickly than their habit, outwardly he maintained his lazily indifferent pose, as if entirely unconscious that what he had said had occasioned his father the least disturbance. "You you dwelt at Maligny?" said his lordship, the usual high color all vanished from his face.
It was her ladyship who was the first to break the silence. She had been considering Mr. Caryll through narrowing eyes, the corners of her mouth drawn down. She had caught the name of Maligny when it was uttered, and out of the knowledge which happened to be hers though Mr. Caryll was ignorant of this it set her thinking.
For it was said that there had been no marriage. The rumor of her death had gone abroad, and it had been carried to England and my Lord Rotherby by a cousin of hers the last living Maligny who crossed the channel to demand of that stolid gentleman satisfaction for the dishonor put upon his house.
"In a week or so, I shall be well enough to travel." "'Tis your intent to travel?" she inquired. He set down the jar, and reached for the tinderbox. "It is time I was returning home," he explained. "Ah, yes. Your home is in France." "At Maligny; the sweetest nook in Normandy. 'Twas my mother's birthplace, and 'twas there she died." "You have felt the loss of her, I make no doubt."
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