“But is there anything so very strange,” said Helen, proudly, “that those highly placed by station should be as highly gifted by nature, and that his Royal Highness, having heard of your unmerited calumnies, should have seen that this was the fitting moment to remember the services you have rendered the Crown? I have heard that there are several posts of high trust and honor conferred on those who, like yourself, have won distinction in the service.” “Helen is right,” said Lady Eleanor, drawing a long breath, and as if released of a weighty load of doubt and uncertainty; “this is the real explanation; the phrases of official life may give it another coloring to our eyes, but such, I feel assured, is the true solution.” “I should like to think it so,” said Darcy, feelingly; “it would be a great source of pride to me at this moment, when my fortunes are lower than ever they were,--lower than ever I anticipated they might be,--to know that my benefactor was the Monarch. In any case I must lose no time in acknowledging this mark of favor. It is now the 4th of the month; to be in London by the 14th, I should leave this to-morrow.” “It is better to do so,” said Lady Eleanor, with an utterance from which a great effort had banished all agitation; “Helen and I are safe and well here, and as happy as we can be when away from you and Lionel.” “Poor Lionel!” said the Knight, tenderly; “what good news for him it would be were they to give me some staff appointment,--I might have him near us. Come, Eleanor,” added he, with more gayety of manner, “I feel a kind of presentiment of good tidings. But we are forgetting Bagenal Daly all this time; perhaps this letter of his may throw some light on the matter.” Darcy now broke the seal of Daly's note, which, even for him, was one of the briefest. This was so far fortunate, since his writing was in his very worst style, blotted and half erased in many places, scarcely legible anywhere. It was only by assembling a “committee of the whole house” that the Darcys were enabled to decipher even a portion of this unhappy document. As well as it could be rendered, it ran somewhat thus:-- “The verdict is against us; old Bretson never forgave you carrying away the medal from him in Trinity some fifty years back; he charged dead against you; I always said he would. _Summum jus, summa injuria_--The Chief Justice--the greatest wrong! and the jury the fellows who lived under you, in your own town, and their fathers and grandfathers! at least, as many of the rascals as had such.--Never mind, Bicknell has moved for a new trial; they have gained the 'Habere' this time, and so has O'Halloran--you heard of the thrashing--” Here two tremendous patches of ink left some words that followed quite unreadable.