Vincent Dashwood seemed to expand, he stood there smiling benignly, he had lost his strange uneasiness of manner altogether. And yet Mary did not fail to notice the furtive look in his eyes. There must be something wrong here, she thought; it was impossible to regard this man as the head of the family. For three hundred years Dashwood had been ruled by a gentleman, a man of honour. And this smirking creature, with the red, grinning face and cunning eyes, was neither. Mary knew him to be little better than a blackmailer. And if he was the person he claimed to be, why had he not come forward and proclaimed his identity before? She could not believe that Vincent Dashwood had hidden his light under a bushel merely because he was short of one particular document. The girl did not believe that he would have spoken now had not the awkward incident of the matchbox compelled him to do so. And here was Ralph Darnley actually pushing forward the cause of the new claimant and giving him the one proof that he needed. And yet the thing was impossible; surely the walls of the house would collapse about the head of so poor a ruler as Vincent Dashwood. The old familiar objects around Mary filled her with a kind of dumb pain. She was going to lose them all--the pictures and the gardens, the horses in the stables, and the very deer that loved her. What the future held for her, Mary had not considered. She brought herself back to the present with an effort; she became aware that Vincent Dashwood was speaking. "This--this is really extraordinary," he cackled. "Like a scene from a play. I had my own good reasons for not proclaiming my identity for the present, but you all see that circumstances have been too strong for me. And then at the critical moment Mr. Darnley comes along with that paper. How it came into his possession----" "That is easily explained," Ralph said in his grave way. "It was given to me by Mr. Ralph Dashwood in circumstances that I need not go into here. Primarily, the certificate was to have been forwarded to the solicitors of this estate." "Quite so, quite so," Dashwood said loftily. "Really, it doesn't matter. The point is that my proofs are now complete. My idea was to do nothing and say nothing till Lady Dashwood--my grandmother--had become resigned to the change in the condition of affairs. It is perhaps natural that the good lady should look coldly on me and that all her affection should be for Mary here. And I am bound to say that Mary has not treated me with the friendliness that I could have wished." Hot words rose to the girl's lips, but she checked herself with an effort. Doubtless the new heir was doing his best to be agreeable, perhaps he did not know how offensive he was.