John Brancker had replied to Mr. Hodgson's somewhat peremptorily-worded note on the day following that of his return from London. Miss Rivers, he told him, absolutely declined to break off her engagement with Mr. Hazeldine, or even to consider the question at all, unless the command to do so emanated from some one who was legally entitled to control her actions until she should come of age. In short, Mr. Hodgson must lift the veil which concealed her parentage, and prove to her that there was someone still living who had a right to her obedience, or to so much of it as could be looked for by anyone who for seventeen years had neglected to put forward the slightest claim thereto. It was a very outspoken letter, and John meant it for such. He was heart and soul with the young people, and totally opposed to their having their fate settled by someone as to whose identity they knew no more than they did of that of the proverbial man in the moon. But day passed after day without bringing any answer to John's letter. Hermia shrugged her pretty shoulders, and said it was quite evident that the information she had asked for was more than Mr. Hodgson was prepared, or empowered, to furnish her with. Meanwhile she was quite content to let matters go on as they were at present. John had not failed to tell his sister all that had passed at the momentous interview between himself and Clement, and how he had resolved to keep the true story of Mr. Hazeldine's death as a sacred secret to be divulged to no one save her to whom he now told it. It was a course which received the full approval of Aunt Charlotte. However much her brother might have suffered in the past, and however dark the prospect ahead might still be, to have revealed the dead man's secret, which he had been at such terrible pains to hide from everyone save his two sons, would have seemed to these worthy souls almost as much an act of profanation as if they had rifled his grave. It was left to Clement to disclose to Hermia as much, or as little, relating to the affair as he might deem advisable. With what he told her, or what, in the exercise of a wise reticence, he omitted to tell her, we have nothing here to do. And now came the offer from Lord Elstree. "At last--at last the sun is breaking through the clouds," exclaimed Aunt Charlotte, with tears of joy in her eyes when the news was told her. "What will the Ashdown people think now, dear, when they find that his Lordship has taken you by the hand?" she added. "There will be no more looking askance at you in future, I'll warrant. Not one of them but will discover that he, or she, was quite convinced from the first that you were an innocent man who had been deeply wronged."