at interest she can have in us."

"If she has any interest, Rupert, I suppose she will stop staring some
day and speak. Perhaps it is some old servant, though I don't remember
her. Well, it is no odds any way."

Jane Humphreys was much puzzled as to what step she should take first.
During all these years she had waited she had always expected that she
should have known which was her own child as soon as she set eyes on the
boys, and was surprised and disappointed to find that even after a
week's stay at Cheltenham, and examining their faces as closely as she
could, she had not the slightest idea which was which. She had imagined
that she should not only know, but feel an affection for the boy who was
her own, and she had fully intended to place him in the position of
Captain Clinton's heir, trusting to receive the promise of a large sum
from him when he should come into possession.

Now it seemed to her that she cared no more for one than for the other,
and that her best plan therefore was to place in the position of heir
whichever of them was most likely to suit her purpose. But here, again,
she was in a difficulty. If they resembled each other in no other point,
they both looked thoroughly manly, straightforward, and honest lads,
neither of whom would be likely to entertain any dishonourable
proposition. Her intention had been to say to her son, "You are not
really the twin brother, as you suppose, of the other. Captain and Mrs.
Clinton do not know which of you two is their child." She wondered
whether they already knew as much as that. Probably they did. So many
people had known of that affair at Agra, that Captain Clinton had
probably told them himself. She would tell the boy, "I am the only
person in the world who can clear up the mystery. I have the key to it
in my hand, and can place either you or the other in the position of
sole heir to the estate. I shall expect to be paid a handsome sum from
the one I put into possession. Remember, on one hand I can give you a
splendid property, on the other I can show you to have been from the
first a usurper of things you had no right to--an interloper and a
fraud."

It had seemed to her a simple matter before she came down to Cheltenham.
Surely no boy in his senses would hesitate a moment in accepting her
offer. It had always been a fixed thing in her mind that this would be
so, but now she felt that it was not so certain as she before imagined.
She hesitated whether s