I have
overwhelming documentary evidence--a cloud of witnesses--to convince the
most sceptical as to who and what I am. The documents are some of them
in my valise, at your ladyship's service. Others are at my hotel in
London, ready for the inspection of your ladyship's lawyers. I do not
think you will desire to invite a public inquiry, or force me to recover
my birthright in a court of justice. I believe that you will take a
broader and nobler view of the case, and that you will restore to the
wronged and abandoned son the fortune stolen from his murdered father.'
'How dare you come to me with this tissue of lies? How dare you look me
in the face and charge my dead husband with treachery and dishonour? I
believe neither in your story nor in you, and I defy you to the proof of
this vile charge against the dead!'
'In other words you mean that you will keep the money and jewels which
Lord Maulevrier stole from my father?'
'I deny the fact that any such jewels or money ever passed into his
lordship's possession. That vile woman, your mother, whose infamy cast a
dark cloud over Lord Maulevrier's honour, may have robbed her husband,
may have emptied the public treasury.
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