Miss Garth roused herself mechanically, and read the certificate.  It seemed to produce no distinct impression on her:  she laid it on one side in a lost, bewildered manner.  “Twelve years,” she said, in low, hopeless tones—­“twelve quiet, happy years I lived with this family.  Mrs. Vanstone was my friend; my dear, valued friend—­my sister, I might almost say.  I can’t believe it.  Bear with me a little, sir, I can’t believe it yet.”

“I shall help you to believe it when I tell you more,” said Mr. Pendril—­“you will understand me better when I take you back to the time of Mr. Vanstone’s early life.  I won’t ask for your attention just yet.  Let us wait a little, until you recover yourself.”

They waited a few minutes.  The lawyer took some letters from his pocket, referred to them attentively, and put them back again.  “Can you listen to me, now?” he asked, kindly.  She bowed her head in answer.  Mr. Pendril considered with himself for a moment, “I must caution you on one point,” he said.  “If the aspect of Mr. Vanstone’s character which I am now about to present to you seems in some respects at variance with your later experience, bear in mind that, when you first knew him twelve years since, he was a man of forty; and that, when I first knew him, he was a lad of nineteen.”

His next words raised the veil, and showed the irrevocable Past.

CHAPTER XIII.

“THE fortune which Mr. Vanstone possessed when you knew him” (the lawyer began) “was part, and part only, of the inheritance which fell to him on his father’s death.  Mr. Vanstone the elder was a manufacturer in the North of England.  He married early in life; and the children of the marriage were either six or seven in number—­I am not certain which.  First, Michael, the eldest son, still living, and now an old man turned seventy.  Secondly, Selina, the eldest daughter, who married in after-life, and who died ten or eleven years ago.  After those two came other sons and daughters, whose early deaths make it unnecessary to mention them particularly.  The last and by many years the youngest of the children was Andrew, whom I first knew, as I told you, at the age of nineteen.  My father was then on the point of retiring from the active pursuit of his profession; and in succeeding to his business, I also succeeded to his connection with the Vanstones as the family solicitor.

“At that time, Andrew had just started in life by entering the army.  After little more than a year of home-service, he was ordered out with his regiment to Canada.  When he quitted England, he left his father and his elder brother Michael seriously at variance.  I need not detain you by entering into the cause of the quarrel.  I need only tell you that the elder Mr. Vanstone, with many excellent qualities, was a man of fierce and intractable temper.  His eldest son had set him at defiance, under circumstances which might have justly irritated a father of far milder character; and he declared, in the most positive terms, that he would never see Michael’s face again.  In defiance of my entreaties, and of the entreaties of his wife, he tore up, in our presence, the will which provided for Michael’s share in the paternal inheritance.  Such was the family position, when the younger son left home for Canada.