get this strange idea out of your head. It is not
right of you to harbor such thoughts of any men."

"I should like to look so hard at them," continued Charlotte, scarcely
heeding her husband's words. "I know their eyes would flinch, they would
be startled, they would betray themselves. Angus, I can't help it, the
conviction that is over me is too strong to be silenced. For years, ever
since my mother told me that story, I have felt that we have been
wronged, nay, robbed of our own. But when I entered that house to-day
and found myself face with my half-brother's daughter, when I found
myself in the house that I had been forbidden to enter, I felt--I knew,
that a great wrong had been committed. My father! Why should I think
ill of my father, Angus? Is it likely that he would have made no
provision for my mother whom he loved, or for me? Is it likely that he
would have left everything he possessed to the two sons with whom he had
so bitterly quarrelled, that for years they had not even met? Is it
likely? Angus, you are a just man, and you will own to the truth. Is it
likely, that with his almost dying breath, he should have assured my
mother that all was settled that she could bring me up well, in comfort
and luxury, that Charlotte Harman and I should be friends? No, Angus! I
believe my father; he was a good and just man always; and, even if he
was not, dying men don't tell lies."

"I grant that it seems unlikely, Lottie; but then, on the other hand,
what do you accuse these men of? Why, of no less a crime than forging a
will, of suppressing the real will, and bringing forward one of their
own manufacture. Why, my dear wife, such an act of villainy would be not
only difficult, but, I should say, impossible."

"I don't know _how_ it was done, Angus, but something was done, of that
I am sure, and what that thing was I shall live, please God, to find
out."

"Then you--you, a clergyman's wife--the wife of a man who lives to
proclaim peace on earth, good-will to men, you go into your brother's
house as a spy!"

Mrs. Home colored. Her husband had risen from his chair.

"You shall not do that," he said; "I am your husband, and I forbid it.
You can only go to the Harmans, if they are indeed the near relations
you believe them to be, on one condition."

"And that?" said Charlotte.

"That you see not only Mr. Harman's daughter, but Mr. Harman himself;
that you tell him exactly who you are.... If, after hearing your story