haracter. The inquiry
opened a field of conjecture, from which I hastened to turn my eyes.
This woman had a sister who had been in the service of Gabrielle
Desmarets, and Gabrielle Desmarets had been in the neighbourhood during
my poor daughter's life-time, and just after my daughter's death. And
the nurse had had two infants under her charge; the nurse had removed
with one of them to Paris--and Gabrielle Desmarets lived in Paris--and,
O Alban, if there be really in flesh and life a child by Jasper Losely,
to be forced upon my purse or my pity--is it his child, not by the
ill-fated Matilda, but by the vile woman for whom Matilda, even in the
first year of wedlock, was deserted? Conceive how credulity itself
would shrink appalled from the horrible snare!--I to acknowledge, adopt,
proclaim as the last of the Darrells, the adulterous offspring of a
Jasper Losely and a Gabrielle Desmarets!--or, when I am in my grave,
some claim advanced upon the sum settled by my marriage articles on
Matilda's issue, and which, if a child survived, could not have been
legally transferred to its father--a claim with witnesses suborned--a
claim that might be fraudulently established--a claim that would
leave the representative--not indeed of my lands and wealth, but, more
precious far, of my lineage and blood--in--in the person of--of--"

Darrell paused, almost stifling, and became so pale that Alban started
from his seat in alarm.

"It is nothing," resumed Darrell, faintly, "and, ill or well, I must
finish this subject now, so that we need not reopen it."

"I remained abroad, as you know, for some years. During that time two
or three letters from Jasper Losely were forwarded to me; the latest in
date more insolent than all preceding ones. It contained demands as if
they were rights, and insinuated threats of public exposure, reflecting
on myself and my pride: 'He was my son-in-law after all, and if he came
to disgrace, the world should know the tie.' Enough. This is all I
knew until the man who now, it seems, thrusts himself forward as
Jasper Losely's friend or agent, spoke to me the other night at Mrs.
Haughton's. That man you have seen, and you say that he--"

"Represents Jasper's poverty as extreme; his temper unscrupulous and
desperate; that he is capable of any amount of scandal or violence. It
seems that though at Paris he has (Poole believes) still preserved the
name of Hammond, yet that in England he has resumed that of Losely;
a