lient,--what will a jury think, who will have no such
bias? If they are cousins,--distant cousins,--why should they not
marry and be happy, one bringing the title, and the other the wealth?
There could be no more rational union, Miss Lovel."

Then there was a long pause before any one spoke a word. Mr. Flick
had been forbidden to speak, and Sir William, having made his
proposition, was determined to await the lady's reply. The lady was
aghast, and for awhile could neither think nor utter a word. At last
she opened her mouth. "I must speak to my brother about this."

"Quite right, Miss Lovel."

"Now I may go, Sir William?"

"Good morning, Miss Lovel." And Miss Lovel went.

"You have gone farther than I thought you would, Sir William," said
Mr. Flick.

"I hardly went far enough, Mr. Flick. We must go farther yet if we
mean to save any part of the property for the young man. What should
we gain, even if we succeeded in proving that the Earl was married
in early life to the old Sicilian hag that still lives? She would
inherit the property then;--not the Earl."

CHAPTER VI.

YOXHAM RECTORY.

Miss Lovel, wise and strong-minded as she was, did not dare to come
to any decision on the proposition made to her without consulting
some one. Strong as she was, she found herself at once to be too weak
to speak to her nephew on the subject of her late interview with
the great lawyer without asking her brother's opinion. The parson
had accompanied her up to London, in a state of wrath against Sir
William, in that he had not been sent for instead of his sister, and
to him she told all that had been said. Her brother was away at his
club when she got back to her hotel, and she had some hours in which
to think of what had taken place. She could not at once bring herself
to believe that all her former beliefs were vain and ill founded.

But if the opinion of the Solicitor-General had not prevailed with
her, it prevailed still less when it reached her brother second-hand.
She had been shaken, but Mr. Lovel at first was not shaken at all.
Sir William was a Whig and a traitor. He had never known a Whig who
was not a traitor. Sir William was throwing them over. The Murray
people, who were all Whigs, had got hold of him. He, Mr. Lovel, would
go at once to Mr. Hardy, and tell Mr. Hardy what he thought. The
case should be immediately taken out of the hands of Messrs. Norton
and Flick. Did not all the world know that these impo