Strange documentary evidence was unfolded and compared with the date of
a royal decree: affidavits of persons now dead; a ring, the ring; fans,
and lace, and handkerchiefs with notable initials; jewelry stamped 'To
the Divine Anastasia' from an adoring Christian name: old brown letters
that shrieked 'wife' when 'charmer' seemed to have palled; oaths
of fidelity ran through them like bass notes. Jorian held up the
discoloured sheets of ancient paper saying:

'Here you behold the mummy of the villain Love.' Such love as it
was--the love of the privileged butcher for the lamb. The burden of
the letters, put in epigram, was rattlesnake and bird. A narrative
of Anastasia's sister, Elizabeth, signed and sealed, with names of
witnesses appended, related in brief bald English the history of the
events which had killed her. It warmed pathetically when dwelling on the
writer's necessity to part with letters and papers of greater moment,
that she might be enabled to sustain and educate her sister's child. She
named the certificate; she swore to the tampering with witnesses. The
number and exact indication of the house where the ceremony took place
was stated--a house in Soho;--the date was given, and the incident
on that night of the rape of the beautiful Miss Armett by mad Lord
Beaumaris at the theatre doors, aided by masked ruffians, after
Anastasia's performance of Zamira.

'There are witnesses I know to be still living, Mr. Temple,' my father
said, seeing the young student-at-law silent and observant. 'One of them
I have under my hand; I feed him. Listen to this.'

He read two or three insufferable sentences from one of the
love-epistles, and broke down. I was ushered aside by a member of the
firm to inspect an instrument prepared to bind me as surety for the
costs of the appeal. I signed it. We quitted the attorney's office
convinced (I speak of Temple and myself) that we had seen the shadow of
something.

CHAPTER XL. MY FATHER'S MEETING WITH MY GRANDFATHER

My father's pleasure on the day of our journey to Bulsted was to drive
me out of London on a lofty open chariot, with which he made the circuit
of the fashionable districts, and caused innumerable heads to turn. I
would have preferred to go the way of other men, to be unnoticed, but
I was subject to an occasional glowing of undefined satisfaction in the
observance of the universally acknowledged harmony existing between his
pretensions, his tastes and habits,