e feelings of vague, undefined doubt were to give way
to a very palpable terror. His own son had seen Pracontal, and sat at
table with him. Pracontal was a good-looking, well-mannered fellow,
with, doubtless, all the readiness and the aplomb of a clever foreigner;
not a creature of mean appearance and poverty-struck aspect, whose very
person would disparage his pretensions, but a man with the bearing of
the world and the habits of society.

So sudden and so complete was this revulsion, and so positively did it
depict before him an actual conflict, that he could only think of how
to deal with Pracontal personally, by what steps it might be safest
to approach him, and how to treat a man whose changeful fortunes must
doubtless have made him expert in difficulties, and at the same time a
not unlikely dupe to well-devised and well-applied flatteries.

To have invited him frankly to Castello--to have assumed that it was a
case in which a generous spirit might deal far more successfully than
all the cavils and cranks of the law, was Bramleigh's first thought; but
to do this with effect, he must confide the whole story of the peril to
some at least of the family; and this, for many reasons, he could not
stoop to. Bramleigh certainly attached no actual weight to this man's
claim; he did not in his heart believe that there was any foundation for
his pretension; but Sedley had told him that there was case enough to
go to a jury, and a jury meant exposure, publicity, comment, and very
unpleasant comment too, when party hatred should contribute its venom
to the discussion. If, then, he shrunk from imparting this story to his
sons and daughters, how long could he count on secrecy?--only till next
assizes perhaps. At the first notice of trial the whole mischief
would be out, and the matter be a world-wide scandal. Sedley advised
a compromise, but the time was very unpropitious for this. It was
downright impossible to get money at the moment. Every one was bent on
"realizing," in presence of all the crashes and bankruptcies around.
None would lend on the best securities, and men were selling out at
ruinous loss to meet pressing engagements. For the very first time in
his life, Bramleigh felt what it was to want for ready money. He had
every imaginable kind of wealth. Houses and lands, stocks, shares,
ships, costly deposits and mortgages,--everything in short but gold; and
yet it was gold alone could meet the emergency. How foolish it w