It had remained for Robert Turold to prove it.  His father and grandfather had bragged of it, had fabricated family trees over their cups, and glowed with pride over their noble blood, but had let it go at that.  Robert was a man of different mould.  In his hands, the slender supposition had been turned into certainty.  By immense labour and research he built a bridge from the first Turold of whom any record existed, backwards across the dark gap of the past.  He traced the wanderings of his ancestors through different generations and different counties to Robert Turold, who established himself in Suffolk forty years after the last Lord Turrald was laid to rest in his family vault in the village church of Great Missenden.

The construction of this portion of his family tree occupied Robert Turold for ten years.  There were scattered records to be collected, forgotten wills to be sought in county offices, parochial registers to be searched for births and deaths.  A nomadic family has no traditions; Robert Turold had to trace his back to the darkness of the Middle Ages.  It was a notable feat to trace the wanderings of an obscure family back so far as he did, but even then he seemed as far away from the attainment of his desire as ever.  There remained a gap of forty years.  To establish his claim to the title he had to prove that the Turolds sprang from the younger brother of the last Lord Turrald, who had allowed the title to lapse for fear of losing his head if he came forward to claim it.

It did not seem a great gap to bridge after following a wandering scent through four centuries, but the paltry forty years almost beat Robert Turold, and cost him five years additional search.  It was a lucky chance, no more, which finally led him to Cornwall, but it was the hand of Providence (he said so) which directed his footsteps to the churchtown in which Dr. Ravenshaw lived.  It was there he discovered the connecting link in the signature of a single witness on a noble charter which granted to the monks of St. Nicholas “all wreck of sea which might happen in the Scilly Isles except whales.”  To the eye of Robert Turold’s faith the illegible scrawl on this faded scroll formed the magic name of Simon Turrald.

For once, faith was justified by its works.  The signature was indeed Simon Turrald’s; not the younger brother of the last Lord Turrald, but Simon’s son.

Bit by bit, Robert Turold succeeded in fitting together the last pieces of the puzzle which had eluded him for so long.  Simon Turrald, the brother, had fled to Cornwall, where he had married a Cornishwoman who had brought him two sons.  The elder, Simon, had taken religious vows, and established a priory at St. Fair, a branch of the great priory of St. Germain.  The holy fathers of the order had long since vanished from this earth to reap the reward of their goodness (it is to be hoped) in another world, but the remains of the priory still stood on a barren headland near Cape Cornwall.  And there was a tomb in St. Fair church, behind the altar, marked by a blue slab, with an indent formerly filled by a recumbent figure.  On the blue slab was a partly obliterated inscription in monkish Latin, which yielded its secret to him, and divulged that the remains beneath were those of Father Simon of St. Fair.