o be beforehand with Kate, and make immediate
confession. Therefore he was provided with their marriage certificate,
which he now produced, and silently presented to his uncle.

The date was satisfactory, and Lord Bromley was relieved from the most
harrowing anxiety. Yet his brow did not relax as he turned gravely to his
nephew. "What was your motive, Harry, in concealing this marriage?"

Dutton was silent.

"You may well be unwilling to express it. It was because you feared to
lose the inheritance I have foolishly brought you up to expect."

Harry looked up frankly, though writhing under his words.

"I cannot wholly deny it, uncle, and if you now change your intentions
towards me, it is only what I expect. Bluebell and I were married hastily
at Liverpool, she is my best excuse for that. Afterwards, when I came to
'The Towers,' I meant to have told you, but--don't you recollect?--you
positively refused to hear what I had to say. Of course I ought to have
persisted."

"And did Theodora also see the expediency of concealing her marriage till
my death?"

"No, indeed," cried Harry, warmly. "She would have risked everything to
have it acknowledged. It puts my conduct in an awfully cold-blooded
light, but I hope you don't think me utterly ungrateful."

"As to that, the less said the better," returned Lord Bromley, coolly.

Dutton turned away abashed and deeply wounded, for he really was attached
to the relative who had been his best friend and benefactor from infancy
to manhood. Lord Bromley slowly left the room, and, sending for his
niece, endeavoured to explain to her the astounding facts that Bluebell
was the daughter of his disinherited son, and had been married to Dutton
for nearly two years.

There was scarcely room in Mrs. Barrington's mind to grasp this new
aspect of affairs, it being already taken up with Kate's shocking
discovery of the heir, flirting in a secluded summer-house with the
treacherous governess. Very earnestly, therefore, she tried to convince
her uncle that he must be deceived, and that Bluebell was an impostor and
an adventuress.

"There's not a shade of doubt about her identity," contested Lord Bromley
"I have known for some time whom she was. Indeed, Lydia, you were my
first informant when you told me where you had taken her from. Parker had
reported that Theodore's daughter was with some people of the name of
Markham, and immediately found out accidentally that she was no longer
there