One morning, a very few days after Strahan had shown me Sir Philip
Derval's letter, I received a note from my old college acquaintance,
stating that he was going to Derval Court that afternoon; that he should
take with him the memoir which he had found, and begging me to visit him
at his new home the next day, and commence my inspection of the
manuscript. I consented eagerly.

That morning, on going my round, my carriage passed by another drawn up to
the pavement, and I recognized the figure of Margrave standing beside the
vehicle, and talking to some one seated within it. I looked back, as my
own carriage whirled rapidly by, and saw with uneasiness and alarm that it
was Richard Strahan to whom Margrave was thus familiarly addressing
himself. How had the two made acquaintance?

Was it not an outrage on Sir Philip Derval's memory, that the heir he had
selected should be thus apparently intimate with the man whom he had so
sternly denounced? I became still more impatient to read the memoir: in
all probability it would give such explanations with respect to Margrave's
antecedents, as, if not sufficing to criminate him of legal offences,
would at least effectually terminate any acquaintance between Sir Philip's
successor and himself.

All my thoughts were, however, diverted to channels of far deeper interest
even than those in which my mind had of late been so tumultuously whirled
along, when, on returning home, I found a note from Mrs. Ashleigh. She
and Lilian had just come back to L----, sooner than she had led me to
anticipate. Lilian had not seemed quite well the last day or two, and had
been anxious to return.