"Haveril! Can it be the millionaire person whom my son met--with you--at Sir Robert Steele's house?" "That is the lady." "Indeed! I always tell my son that he should be more careful of his company. Well, go on." Richard smiled. The insolence of the observation did not hurt him in the least. It lessened the power of the presence, and gave him confidence. "This lady," he continued, "fancies or discerns an extraordinary resemblance to her husband, my father--and to myself--in your son, Lady Woodroffe. The resemblance is very striking. He has most undoubtedly my father's face, the same colour of his hair--his figure even more strongly, it is said, than myself. Yet I am considered like him." "And because there is this resemblance, she imagined----" "Hardly imagined. She dreamed----" "Dreamed! What have I to do with her dreams? Well, she has only to ascertain the real parentage of Sir Humphrey--my son. Oh, I have your letter in my mind! Sir Humphrey, you said, the second baronet. We shall come to your letter presently." "One would think----" "Has she any other reason to go upon besides the resemblance?" By this time it was evident that she understood exactly what was meant. "She had, until yesterday, no other reason. Yet, from one or two simple facts that I have discovered--they are in my letter--I am certain that she is right." "Indeed! Do you understand, Mr. Woodroffe, the exact meaning of those words, 'that she is right.' Then what is my son?" "He would be no longer your son. He would be her son." "Then what am I?" "That, Lady Woodroffe, is not for me to say." "I promised to give you an audience. Therefore go on." "Since there was no kind of proof of this imagining--or this dream--I thought that I would go down to Birmingham to search the registers." "You are a detective, or a private and secret inquirer?" "No; I am acting only for this lady." "She is a millionairess. I hope she pays you well. But the facts--the facts. And you found----" "A great deal more than I hoped. The facts which I set forth in my letter." "An entry in the register, purporting to record the death of my son, and an entry in a hotel-book, giving my name,--that is all!" "Is it not enough? The child was about the same age as the one adopted. There are not many children of that age who die every week--even in Birmingham. Again, if the child died in Birmingham at all, it must have been at a hotel. There are not many children of the same age likely to die in the same week in a Birmingham hotel. I had the register of deaths searched, and found--what I told you. Copies have been taken. I went to the hotel nearest the station, and had the visitors' book searched. I found--what I told you. Copies have been taken." "Very good. What next?" "I sent you that letter, and I came to hear what you say about it." "What should I say about it?" "Who is this young man who calls himself the second baronet?" "He is my son." "Then who is the child that died?"