“If that is the nature of your business with me to-day, you will excuse me if I say I cannot listen to you any further,” he said, rather coldly. “Bear with me, if you please, my lord, for a few moments,” returned the imperturbable lawyer, with a wave of his shapely hand, “and allow me to ask you a few questions. Did not the former marquis have an only child?” “Yes; but she forfeited all claim to the property according to the conditions of the entail, and was disowned by her father more than twenty years ago.” “That child gave birth to a son, I’ve been told?” remarked Mr. Faxon, not heeding Mr. Tressalia’s last statement. “I really cannot say whether it was a son or daughter,” he answered, his lips curling again just a trifle. “Whichever it was, it was illegitimate, and could inherit nothing.” “If it had been born in wedlock it would have inherited the property which you now hold, would it not?” “Yes; but it was _not_ born in wedlock, consequently all this argument is utterly useless,” the young marquis said, impatiently. “Are you _quite sure_, my lord, of the truth of what you assert?” was the next unruffled query. “Certainly; it is according to Miss Vance’s own confession to her father; she owned she had been deceived, and that only a mock marriage had been consummated.” “Is it not barely possible that Miss Vance herself may have been mistaken in the matter?” “I should think _not_, when interests of so vital importance were at stake,” Paul Tressalia answered, with something very like a sneer upon his fine face. The question was so utterly devoid of sense and reason, at least to him, that he could not control it. “But it is my duty to prove to you that such _was_ the case, notwithstanding. May I ask your attention to some documents which I have in my possession?” and the lawyer, with great deference, drew forth a package from his pocket. With an expression of incredulity upon his handsome face, Paul Tressalia drew up his chair to the table, to comply with his request. He spread them before him, and immediately entered upon an explanation of their contents, going over them step by step until, in spite of his unbelief, the young marquis’ face grew grave, anxious, and perplexed, and he began to fear that his fair inheritance, his proud name and title, were in danger of being wrested from him after all. He read the certificate signed so boldly by Joshua Grafton, bishop, and rector of St. John’s parish, and which had been given to Marion upon the completion of the marriage ceremony, and which also she had regarded only as so much worthless paper; yet some unaccountable instinct had always prevented her destroying it whenever she had been tempted to do so.