‘An affectionate father,’ said Ferdinand, with the old mocking tone. ‘He was very glad to be comfortably rid of his pretty little daughter. He came to Bond-street a week after his wife’s death, with the merest apology for a hatband, lest people should ask him why he was in mourning, and took the little one on his knee and kissed her, and smoothed her dark curls, but never told her to call him father; and then, finding that she was so fond of me, proposed that I should adopt her altogether, and bring her up as my own.’ ‘For a consideration, I suppose?’ said Lucius. ‘Yes, he paid me something of course—a sum of money down—very little—but he was always whining about his difficulties, and pretended that he could do no more. After that I lost sight of him altogether. I had left England before he came into his uncle’s fortune, and when I wrote to him from South America, asking him to remember old promises, he did not answer my letters. When I came back to England, with some idea of hunting him up and making him pay me for my discretion, I heard that he was dead. He was a mean cur at the best of times, and was never worthy of his wife.’ ‘Tell me at least where I can get most information about him?’ asked Lucius earnestly. ‘From the family lawyers—Pullman and Everill, Lincoln’s-inn.’ This was something. Lucius had set his heart upon restoring Lucille’s rightful name before she changed it for his own. A somewhat useless labour, it might seem in the abstract; but to an Englishman that question of name is a strong point. ‘Is that all you can tell me—the only help you can give me towards reinstating Lucille in any rights she may have been deprived of through her father’s desertion of her?’ asked Lucius. ‘Ay, that’s a question that might be worth looking into. You’d better look at old Glenlyne’s will. Henry married a second time, I know, but I don’t know whether he had children by that second marriage. I don’t see how I can help you. Henry Glenlyne married Félicie Dumarques at the church in Piccadilly—St. James’s—just twenty years ago. I never had the certificate of the marriage. Hal Glenlyne kept that himself. But you’ll find the register. Lucille’s rights—if she has any under Reginald Glenlyne’s will—may be made out clearly enough; provided you can identify the child I brought home to Bond-street as the daughter of Henry and Félicie Glenlyne. There’s your greatest difficulty.’ The man’s keen intellect, even clouded by pain, dulled by the dark shadow of death, grasped every detail, and saw the weak point in the case. ‘I am no fortune-hunter,’ said Lucius, ‘and were Lucille mistress of a million she could be no dearer to me than she is now; nor her future life happier than, with God’s help, I hope to make it. I desire nothing but that she should have justice—justice to her dead mother—justice to herself.’