tary duties to consult him upon.
He read carefully the document which Alice had forwarded, and listened
to Francis's account of the inquiries he had made so unsuccessfully,
before he ventured on giving any opinion.

"This is very possibly true, Mr. Hogarth," said he, at last; "indeed
very probably true. I think with you that this woman, Elizabeth
Ormistown, and her mother, were capable of doing anything that would
bring them in money; but the secret has been kept too long--much too
long. They did their work skilfully, without accomplices, and without
leaving any traces of their proceedings. This confession is not worth
the paper it is written on in a court of law, and you have failed in
all your efforts to get corroborative evidence. There is no use in
inquiring about Violet Strachan; she is dead three years ago. I paid
her, on Hogarth's account, a small weekly sum, that she used to come to
my office for to keep her from destitution, but that payment is at an
end. The other witness could only prove the irregular marriage, which
there is no doubt about, as Henry Hogarth owns to it in his will. The
only evidence that would be worth anything is that of your real mother,
and there is no saying if she is not dead too. I think the chances are
that she is," said Mr. MacFarlane, turning up the annuity tables for
the chances of life at the supposed age of thirty-two, which Mrs. Peck
had given as the probable age of her neighbour in the lodging-house,
after a period of thirty-four years. "If alive, there is no getting at
her, and after all--CUI BONO?"

"I am attached--very deeply attached--to my supposed cousin, Jane
Melville. I want to be free to marry her. I am convinced that she is
not my cousin, and you know the will said that it was on condition of
not marrying or assisting either of my cousins that I was to hold the
property. If I have convinced you of the feasibility of the case--that
I am not related in the slightest degree to the Misses Melville--would
not the benevolent societies to which Mr. Hogarth left his property, in
case of my disobeying his injunctions, see it also?"

"One man, or one society of men, might be convinced," said Mr.
MacFarlane, "and would make a compromise with you on very easy terms;
but I doubt if five distinct corporations would do so."

"There is no one who has any right to object, except these societies,"
said Francis, "or any object in doing so."

"Those clauses forbidding marriage as a c