Presently Mrs. Glyn, at a nod from her daughter, addressed me thus:

"Mr. Ibbetson, your uncle, as you call him, though he is not your uncle,
is a very terrible villain, and has done you and your parents a very
foul wrong. Before I tell you what it is (and I think you ought to know)
you must give me your word of honor that you will do or say nothing that
will get our name publicly mixed up in any way with Colonel Ibbetson's.
The injury to my daughter, now she is happily married to an excellent
man, would be irreparable."

With a beating heart I solemnly gave the required assurance.

"Then, Mr. Ibbetson, it is right that you should know that Colonel
Ibbetson, when he was paying his infamous addresses to my daughter, gave
her unmistakably to understand that you were his natural son, by his
cousin, Miss Catherine Biddulph, afterwards Madame Pasquier de
la Mariere!"

"Oh, oh, oh!" I cried, "surely you must be mistaken--he knew it was
impossible--he had been refused by my mother three times--he went to
India nearly a year before I was born--he--"

Then Mrs. Deane said, producing an old letter from her pocket:

"Do you know his handwriting and his crest? Do you happen to recollect
once bringing me a note from at Ibbetson Hall? Here it is," and she
handed it to me. It was unmistakably his, and I remembered it at once,
and this is what it said: