"Did Gwendoline Gildersleeve write that to you?" he cried, overpowered
at once by remorse and awe. "Did Gwendoline Gildersleeve write
that to you? Well, if Gwendoline Gildersleeve knows it, it's all
up with the scheme! That rascally lawyer, her father, has found
out everything. These two young men must have put their case in
the fellow's hands. He must be hunting up the facts. He must be
preparing to contest it. My boy, my boy, we're ruined! we're ruined!"
"These two young men," Granville repeated, with a puzzled air of
surprise. "WHAT two young men? I don't know them. I never heard
of them." Then suddenly one of those flashes of intuition burst in
upon him that burst in upon us all at moments of critical importance
to our lives. "Father, father," he cried, loaning forward in his
anguish and clutching the oak chair, "you don't mean to tell me
those fellows, the Warings, that we met at Chetwood Court, are your
lawful sons--and that THAT was why you bought the landscape with
the snake in it?"
Kelmscott, of Tilgate, bent his proud head down to the table
unchecked. "My son, my son," he cried, in his despair, "you have
said it yourself. Your own mouth has suggested it. What use my
trying to keep it from you any longer? These lads--are Kelmscotts.
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