that there has been any
imposture--a--a reflection on me!"

"Cleverer men than you have been taken in, Portlethorpe," remarked Mr.
Lindsey. "And the matters you speak of might have been stolen. But let
Mrs. Ralston give us her reasons for suspecting this man--she has some
strong ones, I'll be bound."

Mr. Portlethorpe showed signs of irritation, but Mrs. Ralston promptly
took up Mr. Lindsey's challenge.

"Sufficiently strong to have made me very uneasy of late, at any rate,"
she answered. She turned to Mr. Portlethorpe. "You remember," she went
on, "that my first meeting with this man, when he came to claim the title
and estates, was at your office in Newcastle, a few days after he first
presented himself to you. He said then that he had not yet been down to
Hathercleugh; but I have since found out that he had--or, rather, that he
had been in the neighbourhood, incognito. That's a suspicious
circumstance, Mr. Portlethorpe."

"Excuse me, ma'am--I don't see it," retorted Mr. Portlethorpe. "I don't
see it at all."

"I do, then!" said Mrs. Ralston. "Suspicious, because I, his sister, and
only living relation, was close by. Why didn't he come straight to me? He
was here--he took a quiet look around before he let any one know who he
was. That's one thing I have against him--whatever you say, it was very
suspicious conduct; and he lied about it, in saying he had not been here,
when he certainly had been here! But that's far from all. The real
Gilbert Carstairs, Mr. Lindsey, as Mr. Portlethorpe knows, lived at
Hathercleugh House until he was twenty-two years old. He was always at
Hathercleugh, except when he was at Edinburgh University studying
medicine. He knew the whole of the district thoroughly. But, as I have
found out for myself, this man does not know the district! I have
discovered, on visiting him--though I have not gone there much, as I
don't like either him or his wife--that this is a strange country to him.
He knows next to nothing--though he has done his best to learn--of its
features, its history, its people. Is it likely that a man who had lived
on the Border until he was two-and-twenty could forget all about it,
simply because he was away from it for thirty years? Although I was only
seven or eight when my brother Gilbert left home, I was then a very sharp
child, and I remember that he knew every mile of the country round
Hathercleugh. But--this man doesn't."

Mr. Portlethorpe muttered something about it