Viscount Haselden, _alias_ Lord Maulevrier, held a long consultation
with Lord Hartfield on the night of his grandmother's death, as to what
steps ought to be taken in relation to the real Earl of Maulevrier: and
it was only at the end of a serious and earnest discussion that both
young men came to the decision that Lady Maulevrier's secret ought to be
kept faithfully to the end. Assuredly no good purpose could be achieved
by letting the world know of old Lord Maulevrier's existence. A
half-lunatic octogenarian could gain nothing by being restored to rights
and possessions which he had most justly forfeited. All that justice
demanded was that the closing years of his life should be made as
comfortable as care and wealth could make them; and Hartfield and
Haselden took immediate steps to this end. But their first act was to
send the old earl's treasure chest under safe convoy to the India House,
with a letter explaining how this long-hidden wealth, brought from India
by Lord Maulevrier, had been discovered among other effects in a
lumber-room at Lady Maulevrier's country house.
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