at could I say after this--bound hand and foot as I am by my promise
to Sheldon?

After a long talk with my sweet one, I borrowed uncle Joe's dog-cart,
and spun across to Barngrave, where I found the little church, beneath
whose gray old roof Charlotte Meynell plighted her troth to James
Halliday. I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs.
Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to
restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the
hospitable old farm-house.

To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to
take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the
registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth. After that I
think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to
Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror.

Is it not a great conquest to have made? Is it not almost an act of
chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private
inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love?
And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal
descendant of Matthew Haygarth.

_Nov. 10th_. Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in
ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs
me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in
which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned.

My work is finished. Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks
into Hawkehurst the private individual. I have no more to do but to
mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my
reward.

Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her
birthright? Can I take payment for a service done to her? Surely not:
and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious
that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate? Can I take
advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my
secret knowledge?

Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon
business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern
Arcadia called Newhall farm. What assurance have I that I shall ever
re-enter that pleasant dwelling? What hold have I, a wanderer and
vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves
with such mathematical precision? And even the respectable people are
sometimes out in their reckoning. To snatch the joys o