I took a copy of all entries in the register concerning Mrs.
Meynell Halliday and her children, and then went back to Newhall to restore the dog-cart, and to take my last Yorkshire tea at the hospitable old farm-house.
To-morrow I am off to Barlingford, fifteen miles from this village, to take more copies from registries concerning my sweet young heiress--the registries of her father's marriage, and her own birth.

After that I think my case will be tolerably complete, and I can present myself to Sheldon in the guise of a conqueror.
Is it not a great conquest to have made?
Is it not almost an act of chivalry for these prosaic days to go forth into the world as a private inquirer, and win a hundred thousand pounds for the lady of one's love?
And yet I wish any one rather than my Charlotte were the lineal descendant of Matthew Haygarth.
_Nov.10th_.Here I am in London once more, with my Sheldon in ecstatics, and our affairs progressing marvellously well, as he informs me; but with that ponderous slowness peculiar to all mortal affairs in which the authorities of the realm are in any way concerned.
My work is finished.

Hawkehurst the genealogist and antiquarian sinks into Hawkehurst the private individual.

I have no more to do but to mind my own business and await the fruition of time in the shape of my reward.
Can I accept three thousand pounds for giving my dearest her birthright?
Can I take payment for a service done to her?
Surely not: and, on the other hand, can I continue to woo my sweet one, conscious that she is the rightful claimant to a great estate?
Can I take advantage of her ignorance, and may it not be said that I traded on my secret knowledge?
Before leaving Yorkshire, I stole one more day from the Sheldon business, in order to loiter just a few hours longer in that northern Arcadia called Newhall farm.

What assurance have I that I shall ever re-enter that pleasant dwelling?
What hold have I, a wanderer and vagabond, on the future which respectable people map out for themselves with such mathematical precision?
And even the respectable people are sometimes out in their reckoning.