But--he knew now that it was really she. And as Mr. Jobling, concluding his homily, mentioned again who she claimed to be, he was dazedly thankful that he had not at once contradicted her lawyer; as he might have done--since he knew as a matter of fact that the real Lady Josceline Justice was dead.
Mr. Jobling had also repeated that Mr. Carthew was trespassing there. But at that Sallie turned on her legal adviser in generous indignation, and he shrank into the background again as she spoke.
"If this is _my_ property, as you say it is," she flashed, "what right have _you_ to tell any visitor that he is trespassing here! And if Mr. Carthew has been misinformed--"
"He isn't a visitor, Sallie. He's the man in possession at present," whispered the smartly-dressed young-old man who had been studying Carthew with a most supercilious expression, "and you'd better leave Mr. Jobling to deal with him." He was obviously not at all pleased with her, and his whisper was perfectly audible.
The girl had stopped to listen to him. "We're evidently the trespassers, then," she finished. "_We_ have no business here at all while he remains in possession."
The other man of the party, a white-haired old fellow in clerical garb and wearing a pair of smoked glasses, also turned angrily toward her. But at that moment Mrs. M'Kissock came stumbling forward between them, with a little broken cry, all her habitual self-restraint vanished, her harsh features working, very near tears; and, lifting a hand of the girl's in both of her own to her lips, fondled it foolishly, muttering disconnected phrases.
"I knew--_I_ knew it from the first," she mumbled, "and yet--I did not dare believe my own eyes. But now--God bless your bonny ladyship! And God be thanked for that you have at last come back to your own! Loquhariot has waited very long for this late day, and--
"Say ye now there's a _man_ in possession!" she spoke up, glancing defiance at the individual in the Norfolk suit and then, though with less of disfavour, at Justin Carthew. "Say ye so?--and to me, who have kept the keys of the empty Castle of Loquhariot for her ladyship here, ever since the Red Earl her father laid that trust on me from his death-bed!