he now, three
years later, repeats the denial to you, does not, so far as I can see,
alter the situation in the slightest. He says that he's not in a
position to disprove any of the circumstances alleged against him. Of
course you are at liberty to believe him now, just as you believed him
at first, and as, on mature consideration, you disbelieved him
afterwards; but that is a matter quite of individual opinion. You have
announced to Mr. Barkley that you intend to leave him a third of your
fortune, and it would be in the highest degree unjust to make any
alteration now, without a shadow of reason for doing so. Personally, no
doubt, it is a satisfaction to you to have recovered your belief in
Frank's innocence, but that ought not to interfere in any way with the
arrangements that you have made. My own belief is, as I have told you,
that, pressed for money, and afraid of expulsion were his escapade of
going out at night discovered, Frank yielded to a momentary
temptation--a grievous fault, but not an irreparable one--one, at any
rate, for which he has been severely punished, and for which he may well
be forgiven. So far I am thoroughly with you, but I cannot and will not
follow you in what I consider your absolutely unfounded idea that he is
innocent, and that his cousin--against whom there is not a vestige of
evidence, while the proof the other way is overwhelming--is the real
offender."

Whereupon Captain Bayley had returned home in a state of fury.

"But, after all, uncle," Alice said, after listening for some time to
his outburst against lawyers in general, and Mr. Griffith in particular,
"it really is reasonable what Mr. Griffith says. You and I and Harry,
who know Frank so well, are quite sure that he is innocent; but other
people who don't know him in the same way might naturally take the other
view, for, as Mr. Griffith says, the proofs were strong against him, and
there was nothing whatever to connect Fred Barkley with the crime. I
have been talking it over with Harry since I came back, and he agrees
with me that we must, as you say, get to the bottom of the whole affair
before we go any further.

"Well, isn't that what we have been trying to do all along?" Captain
Bayley exclaimed angrily. "How are we to get to the bottom of it? If you
will tell me that I will grant that you have more sense in your head
than I have ever given you credit for."

"My idea, grandfather, is this," Harry said. "We have not yet he