r man.

But that was his own conviction. He was now sure beyond the hope of
doubt that there was a man alive who resembled Paul Ritson so closely
that he had thrice before, and now once again, been mistaken for him by
unsuspecting persons. That other man was to be the living power in his
own life, in his brother's life, in his mother's life, in Greta's life.
Who was he?

Left alone in the court-yard when the trap drove away, Hugh Ritson
shuddered and looked round. He had laughed with the easy grace of a man
no longer puzzled as he bid Greta good-night, but suspense was gnawing
at his heart. He returned hastily to his room, sat down at the table,
picked up the paper which Parson Christian had sent him, and read it
with eager eyes.

He read it and reread it; he seemed to devour it line by line, word by
word. When he would have set it down his fingers so trembled that he let
it fall, and he rose from his chair with rigid limbs.

What he had dreaded he now knew for certainty. He had stumbled into an
empty grave. He opened a drawer and took out three copies of
certificates that Mr. Bonnithorne had brought him. Selecting the
earliest of these in order of date, he set it side by side with the copy
of the extract from Parson Christian's diary.

By the one--Paul, the son of Grace Ormerod, by her husband Robert
Lowther, was born August 14, 1845.

By the other--Paul, the reputed son of Grace Ormerod by her husband,
Allan Ritson, was an infant still in arms on November 19, 1847.

Paul Ritson could not be Paul Lowther.

Paul Ritson could not be the half-brother of Greta Lowther.

Hugh Ritson fell back as one who had been dealt a blow. For months he
had been idly hatching an addled villainy. The revenge that he had
promised himself for spurned and outraged love--the revenge that he had
named retribution--was but an impotent mockery.

For an hour he strode up and down the room with flushed face and limbs
that shook beneath him. Natt came home from the vicarage, put in his
horse, and turned into the kitchen--now long deserted for the night. He
heard the restless footstep backward and forward, and began to wonder if
anything further had gone wrong. At last he ventured upstairs, opened
noiselessly the door, and found his master with a face aflame and a look
of frenzy. But the curious young rascal with the sleepy eyes had not
time to proffer his disinterested services before he was hunted out with
an oath. He returned to the k