to his fertile,
unscrupulous brain."

This was indeed a glorious success and the firm of Flint and Sharp drank
the Countess of Seyton's health that evening with great enthusiasm, and
gleefully "thought of the morrow."

We found the drawing-room of Seyton House occupied by the Honorable James
Kingston, his solicitors, the Messrs. Jackson, Lady Seyton, and her
father and sister, to whom she had at length disclosed the source of her
disquietude. The children were leaving the apartment as we entered it,
and the grief-dimmed eyes of the countess rested sadly upon her
bright-eyed boy as he slowly withdrew with his sisters. That look changed
to one of wild surprise as it encountered Mr. Flint's shining,
good-humored countenance. I was more composed and reserved than my
partner, though feeling as vividly as he did the satisfaction of being
able not only to dispel Lady Seyton's anguish, but to extinguish the
exultation, and trample on the hopes, of the Honorable James Kingston, a
stiff, grave, middle-aged piece of hypocritical propriety, who was
surveying from out the corners of his affectedly-unobservant eyes the
furniture and decorations of the splendid apartment, and hugging himself
with the thought that all that was his! Business was immediately
proceeded with. Chilton was called in. He repeated his former story
verbatim, and with much fluency and confidence. He then placed in the
hands of Jackson, senior, the vouchers signed by Cunningham and Mullins.
The transient light faded from Lady Seyton's countenance as she turned
despairingly, almost accusingly, towards us.

"What answer have you to make to this gentleman's statement, thus
corroborated?" demanded Jackson, senior.

"Quite a remarkable one," replied Mr. Flint, as he rang the bell. "Desire
the gentlemen in the library to step up," he added to the footman who
answered the summons. In about three minutes in marched Cunningham and
Mullins, followed by two police-officers. An irrepressible exclamation of
terror escaped Chilton, which was immediately echoed by Mr. Flint's
direction to the police, as he pointed towards the trembling caitiff:
"That is your man--secure him."

A storm of exclamations, questions, remonstrances, instantly broke forth,
and it was several minutes before attention could be obtained for the
statements of our two Irish witnesses and the reading of the
happily-found letter. The effect of the evidence adduced was decisive,
electrical. Lady Seyton