he door, a bitter, bitter
change passed over his fine face; the fair brow darkened, the blue eyes
contracted and glittered, the lips were firmly compressed for an instant,
and then he murmured to himself:

"That they should think a secret like this could be buried, concealed
from me, the most interested of all to find it out! Was ever son so
accursed as I am? Other sons have been disinherited, outlawed--but I!
I have been delegalized and degraded from my birth!"

The fine mouth closed with a spasmodic jerk, the brow grew darker, the
eyes glittered with intenser fire. He resumed:

"It will be difficult, if not impossible, but I will be restored to my
rights, or I will ruin and exterminate the ducal house of Hereward! I am
the eldest son of my father; the only son of his first marriage. I am the
heir not only of my father, but of the seven dukes and twenty barons that
preceded him, to whom their patent of nobility was granted, to them and
_their heirs forever_! 'Their heirs forever!' It was granted,
therefore, to _me_ and to all of _my_ direct line! Each baron
and duke had but his life-interest in his barony or dukedom, and could
not alienate it from his heirs by will. It was an infamous, a fraudulent
subterfuge to divorce my poor mother, and so delegalize me a few months
before my birth. But--I will bide my time! This false heir may die. Such
things do happen. And then, as there is no other heir to his title and
estates, _my father_ may acknowledge his eldest son, and try to undo
the evil he has done. But if this should not happen, or if my father, who
is old, should die, and this false heir inherit, _then_ I will spend
every shilling I have inherited from my mother to gain my own. I will
have my rights, though I convict my father of a fraudulent conspiracy,
and it requires an act of Parliament to effect my restoration! And if,
after all, this wrong cannot be righted--although it can be abundantly
proved that I am the only son of my father's first marriage, and the
rightful heir of his dukedom, if, after all, I cannot be restored to my
position, I will prove the mortal enemy of the race of Scott, and the
destruction of the ducal house of Hereward. Meanwhile I must watch and
wait; use this old man as my friend, who will not acknowledge himself as
my father!"

These bitter musings lasted until the cab drew up before Langham's Hotel,
and the youth got out and went into the house.

The boy, wrong in many instances, was