"My dear child, in the event of either success or failure, my half-brother will most certainly regard me with a fraternal feeling, compared with which Cain was loving and Richard the Third was loyal." Molly looked at Alice doubtfully. She lay back in silence, her eyes shut, paying very little attention to what was said. What, Molly thought, would be Humphrey's attitude towards his new mother, when the truth was disclosed to him? With the mother would come the relations. Molly remembered how her own father, the disinherited, used to laugh over his own cousins; over the family pride; how one was parish clerk of St. Botolph's; how one had a select Academy at Homerton; and one had a shop in Mare Street; and one was pew-opener; and one was a Baptist Minister in some unknown but privileged corner of the earth. And it occurred to her, for the first time, that the introduction of Humphrey to his new relations would be a matter of some difficulty and delicacy. "I don't want any proof," said Alice. "I recognized my child when first I saw him. His father was in every feature and every look. And these are my things--mine: I made them." She laid her hand again on the bundle which brought her so much certainty after so much doubt. "But it won't do. It isn't enough. We want proof that will convince a judge and a jury." "If you haven't got it," she said, "I don't mind in the least. I shall send for my son and tell him all. He may stay where he is, if he likes. But I shall tell him all." "I think," Dick continued, without heeding these words, "that we must continue to advertise." "And then?" "Then--I don't know. I should like to bring an action. I don't know what for. We didn't bargain for fraudulent substitution, but for open adoption. I should think there ought to be grounds for action. But, of course, I don't know. They certainly would not court publicity--at least, I should think not. Whether they lost the case or won, the evidence is so circumstantial that the world would certainly believe in the fraud. I cannot believe that even Lady Woodroffe would care to face the footlights." "You talk as if you were at the same time perfectly certain, and also in great doubt." "I am both. I am perfectly certain, not only from the evidence of the register and of these clothes, but from the lady's manner. How should we hear and receive such a thing on the stage, Molly? Consider. You are receiving the discovery of a thing you thought hidden away and buried for ever--a discovery which will blast your whole life." Molly presented immediately a stage interpretation of the emotion thus rudely awakened. She started, threw up her left hand, pressed her heart with her right hand; she opened her lips and panted; her eyes dilated.