To do him justice, the barrister looked on the widow with something of interest, mingling, momentarily, with his fear and anger--but momentarily only. She was slenderly and so beautifully formed, small featured, and dark haired, with much that was intense and unfathomable in her pleading eyes--pleading for her children's honour and her own: and there was Sybil, too, clad in the deepest mourning, her high black dress, with its pretty cuffs, and a small white collar round her delicate neck, made her fair skin seem fairer still, and appeared to become the darkness of her hair and eyes better than any other style of dress would have done; but, then, Sybil looked charming in everything! The little interest died, and Downie regarded them with intense hostility, for he had all "that sublime philosophy which teaches us to bear with tranquillity the woes of others." "Oh--ah--yes," he said, after a most harassing pause; "you are the lady who lives--in fact, who has lived for some time past, in a villa near Porthellick?" "The same, sir." Downie knit his brows, for she accorded him no title, and he was somewhat jealous on the point. "It was a bold act of my brother to bring you here to Cornwall--a secluded place--almost under the eyes of his own family too!" "Circumstanced as we were by the eccentricity of his late uncle, it was, perhaps, unwise," she replied, gently. "I am glad that you admit so much: a little villa near St. John's Wood, or some such place, had been more appropriate for persons so situated." The eyes of Constance began to flash dangerously. "My son is Lord Lamorna!" she exclaimed; "and even on his cold-blooded uncle may punish this cruel insult to his mother!" The General, to whom all this revelation was new and startling, began to feel uncomfortable, and to look quite perplexed; but Downie only smiled a crafty smile, as he said-- "Pooh, my good woman, you are out of your senses; what can be the object of this visit? I am busy--does your carriage wait?" "Before scandals go forth in our name, I beseech you to consider well, and to read this letter, which will show you who I am and what I am, and why for years we have all borne the name of Devereaux," said Constance, making a prodigious effort to control her great grief and just indignation, as she held the document before Downie; "it is the last my dear, dear husband wrote me." "Husband--absurd! This is the wildest of wild assertions," said Downie Trevelyan, as he took the letter from her hand, nevertheless; and as he did so, the words of her dead husband came back to her memory, when he said "that proofs of their marriage, beyond mere assertion, must be forthcoming;" and now those proofs were buried in the sea. "You must recognise the handwriting," said Constance, in a tremulous tone; "and oh, sir," she added, as she eyed him doubtfully and wistfully, "you will restore it to me, and not destroy it?"