had seen it there?" Again Cousin Henry sobbed and groaned.

"You should hardly ask him that," said Mr Brodrick.

"Yes! If any good can be done for him, it must be by making him feel
that he must help us by making our case easy for us. You had seen
it there? Speak the word, and we will do all we can to let you off
easily."

"Just by an accident," said he.

"You did see it, then?"

"Yes;--I chanced to see it."

"Yes; of course you did. And then the Devil went to work with you and
prompted you to destroy it?" He paused as though asking a question,
but to this question Cousin Henry found it impossible to make any
answer. "But the Devil had not quite hold enough over you to make you
do that? It was so;--was it not? There was a conscience with you?"

"Oh, yes."

"But the conscience was not strong enough to force you to give it up
when you found it?" Cousin Henry now burst out into open tears. "That
was about it, I suppose? If you can bring yourself to make a clean
breast of it, it will be easier for you."

"May I go back to London at once?" he asked.

"Well; as to that, I think we had better take some little time for
consideration. But I think I may say that, if you will make our
way easy for us, we will endeavour to make yours easy for you. You
acknowledge this to be your uncle's will as far as you know?"

"Oh, yes."

"You acknowledge that Mr Brodrick found it in this book which I now
hold in my hand?"

"I acknowledge that."

"This is all that I ask you to sign your name to. As for the rest,
it is sufficient that you have confessed the truth to your uncle and
to me. I will just write a few lines that you shall sign, and then
we will go back to Carmarthen and do the best we can to prevent
the trial for next Friday." Thereupon Mr Apjohn rang the bell, and
asked Mrs Griffith to bring him paper and ink. With these he wrote a
letter addressed to himself, which he invited Cousin Henry to sign as
soon as he had read it aloud to him and to Mr Brodrick. The letter
contained simply the two admissions above stated, and then went
on to authorise Mr Apjohn, as the writer's attorney, to withdraw
the indictment against the proprietor of the _Carmarthen Herald_,
"in consequence," as the letter said, "of the question as to the
possession of Llanfeare having been settled now in an unexpected
manner."

When the letter was completed, the two lawyers went away, and Cousin
Henry was left to his own meditation. He sat there fo