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194 LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
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commotion caused by this discovery, there came the letter from the
young lawyer in New York, and Mr. Hobbss letters also.
What an evening it was when those letters arrived, and when
Mr. Havisham and the Earl sat and talked their plans over in the
library!
“ After my first three meetings with her, said Mr. Havisham, ‘I
began to suspect her strongly. It appeared to me that the child was
older than she said he was, and she made a slip in speaking of the
date of his birth and then tried to patch the matter up. The story
these letters bring fits in with several of my suspicions. Our best plan
will be to cable at once for these two Tiptons,— say nothing about
them to her,—and suddenly confront her with them when she is not
expecting it. She is only a very clumsy plotter, after all. My
opinion is that she will be frightened out of her wits, and will betray
herself on the spot.”
And that was what actually happened. She was told nothing,
and Mr. Havisham kept her from suspecting anything by continuing
to have interviews with her, in which he assured her he was investi¬
gating her statements; and she really began to feel so secure that
her spirits rose immensely and she began to be as insolent as might
have been expected. |
But one fine morning, as she sat in her sitting-room at the
inn called " The Dorincourt Arms,” making some very fine plans for
herself, Mr. Havisham was announced; and when he entered, he
was followed by no less than three persons — one was a sharp-faced
boy and one was a big young man and the third was the Earl
of Dorincourt.
She sprang to her feet and actually uttered a cry of terror. It
broke from her before she had time to check it. She had thought
of these new-comers as being thousands of miles away, when she had
ever thought of them at all, which she had scarcely done for years.