A letter had been forwarded acquainting the doctor of his approaching visit, wishing it to be perfectly private, but not alluding to its object, and naming a day, a week later than the one on which he arrived.  This plan was altered on perceiving the torch of life more rapidly approaching the socket than he had at first supposed.  His unexpected appearance and reception are known.  Denbigh’s death and the departure of his son followed; Francis having been Pendennyss’s companion to the tomb of his ancestors in Westmoreland.

The earl had a shrinking delicacy, under the knowledge of his family history, that made him anxious to draw all eyes from the contemplation of his mother’s conduct; how far the knowledge of it had extended in society he could not know, but he wished it buried with her in the tomb.  The peculiar manner of his father’s death would attract notice, and might recall attention to the prime cause of his disorder; as yet all was veiled, and he wished the doctor’s family to let it remain so.  It was, however, impossible that the death of a man of Mr. Denbigh’s rank should be unnoticed in the prints, and the care of Francis dictated the simple truth without comments, as it appeared.  As regarded the Moseleys, what was more natural than that the son of Mr. Denbigh should also be Mr. Denbigh?

In the presence of the rector’s family no allusions were made to their friends, and the villagers and the neighborhood spoke of them as old and young Mr. Denbigh.

The name of Lord Lumley, now Earl of Pendennyss, was known to the whole British nation; but the long retirement of his father and mother had driven them almost from the recollection of their friends.  Even Mrs. Wilson supposed her favorite hero a Lumley.  Pendennyss Castle had been for centuries the proud residence of that family; and the change of name in its possessor was forgotten with the circumstances that had led to it.

When, therefore, Emily met the earl so unexpectedly the second time at the rectory, she, of course, with all her companions, spoke of him as Mr. Denbigh.  On that occasion, Pendennyss had called in person, in expectation of meeting his kinsman, Lord Bolton; but, finding him absent, he could not resist his desire to visit the rectory.  Accordingly, he sent his carriage and servants on to London, leaving them at a convenient spot, and arrived on foot at the house of Dr. Ives.  From the same motives which had influenced him before—­a wish to indulge, undisturbed by useless ceremony, his melancholy reflections—­he desired that his name might not be mentioned.

This was an easy task.  Both Doctor and Mrs. Ives had called him, when a child, George or Lumley, and were unused to his new appellation of Pendennyss; indeed, it rather recalled painful recollections to them all.

It may be remembered that circumstances removed the necessity of any introduction to Mrs. Wilson and her party; and the difficulty in that instance was happily got rid of.