The guardian determined to expostulate with his ward.

He went down to Oxford just before the close of the term.  He found his ward established in elegant and luxurious apartments, quite fit for a royal prince, and very much more ostentatious than the unpretending chambers occupied by the young Marquis of Arondelle at Cambridge, and ridiculously extravagant for a young man of limited income and no expectations like John Scott.

The duke was excessively provoked; the forbearance of years gave way; the bottled-up indignation burst forth, and the guardian gave his ward what in boyish parlance is called, “an awful rowing.”

“You live, sir, at twenty times the rate, your debts are twenty times as large, you cost me twenty times as much as does Lord Arondelle, my own son and heir!” concluded the duke, in a final burst of anger.

John Scott had listened grimly enough to the opening exordium, but when the last sentence broke from the duke’s lips, the young man grew pale as death, while his compressed lips, contracted brow, and gleaming blue eyes alone expressed the fury that raged in his bosom.

He answered very quietly: 

“Your grace means that I cost you twenty times as much as does your younger son, Lord Archibald Scott, as it is natural that I should being the elder son and the heir of the dukedom.”

To portray the duke’s thoughts, feelings or looks during his deliberate speech would be simply impossible.  He sat staring at the speaker, with gradually paling cheeks and widening eyes, until the quiet voice ceased, when he faltered forth: 

“What in Heaven’s name do you mean?”

“I should think your grace should know right well what I have known for years, and can never for a moment forget, though your grace may effect to do so—­that I am your eldest son, the son of your first marriage, with the daughter of the Baron de la Motte, and therefore that I, and not my younger half brother, by your second marriage, am the right Marquis of Arondelle, and the heir of the Dukedom of Hereward,” calmly replied the young man, with all the confidence an assured conviction gave.

The duke sank back in his seat and covered his face with his hands.  However John Scott had made the discovery, it was absolutely certain that he knew the whole secret of his parentage.

“What authority have you for making so strange an assertion?” at length inquired the duke.

“The authority of recorded truth,” replied the young man, emphatically.  “But does your grace really suppose that such a secret could be kept from me?  My dear, lost mother never revealed it to me by her words, but she unconsciously revealed enough to me by her actions to excite my suspicions, and set me on the right track.  The records did the rest, and put me in possession of the whole truth.”

“What records have you examined?” inquired the duke, in a low voice.

“First and last, in Italy and France, I have examined the registers of your marriage with my mother, and of my own birth and baptism; and in England, Burke’s Peerage.  All these as well as other well-known facts, As easily proved as if they were recorded, establish my rights as your son—­your eldest son and heir.”