The moment this hideous doubt occurred
to his mind, he couldn't rest in his bed till he had cleared it
all up and settled it for ever, one way or the other. If Tilgate
wasn't his, by law and right, he wanted none of it. If his father
was trying to buy off the real heir to the estate with a pitiful
pittance, in order to preserve the ill-gotten remainder for Lady
Emily's son, why, Granville for his part would be no active party
to such a miserable compromise. If some other man was the Colonel's
lawful heir, let that other man take the property and enjoy it; but
he, Granville Kelmscott, would go forth upon the world, an honest
adventurer, to seek his fortune with his own right hand wherever
he might find it.
Still, he could take no active step, on the other hand, to hunt
up the truth about the Colonel's real or supposed first marriage.
For here an awful dilemma blocked the way before him. If the Colonel
had married before, and if by that former marriage he had a son or
sons--how could Granville be sure the supposed first wife was dead
before the second was married? And supposing, for a moment, she
was not dead--supposing his father had been even more criminal and
more unjust than he at first imagined--how could he take the initiative
himself in showing that his own mother, Lady Emily Kelmscott, was
no wife at all in the sight of the law? that some other woman was
his father's lawful consort? The bare possibility of such an issue
was too horrible for any son on earth to face undismayed.
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