In making a second visit with the same intent, he had another attack of
the heart, and now knew that he would have died in the snow had not John
found him.
CHAPTER XXXVI.
THE END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
We returned to England the next day. All the journey through, my uncles
were continually reverting to the matter of John's parentage: the more
they saw of him, the less could they believe lady Cairnedge his mother.
Through questions put to him, and inquiries afterward made, they
discovered that, when he went to London, he had gone to lady Cairnedge's
lawyer, not his father's, of whom he had never heard--which accounted for
his having on that occasion learned nothing of consequence to him. When
we reached London, my uncle Edmund, who, having been bred a lawyer, knew
how to act, went at once to examine the will left by John's father. That
done, he set out for the place where John was born. The rest of us went
home.
The second day after our arrival there, uncle Edmund came. He had found
perfect proof, not only that lady Cairnedge was John's step-mother, but
that she had no authority over him or his property whatever.
A long discussion took place in my uncles' study--I have to shift the
apostrophe of possession--as to whether John ought to compel restitution
of what she might have wrongfully spent or otherwise appropriated.
Pages:
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246