"No! he is too tough for you!" sneered
Laurence, leaving the room just as the lawyer
galloped up to the door.

"A damp visitor, sir!" said Mr. Clark Jones
facetiously, stamping on the hall mat, and
shaking the snow in heavy folds from his shaggy
coat.

Laurence smiled graciously, even going the
length of a cordial shake of the hand. He had
no love for the man, but encouraged him, as a
kind of animated tourniquet or thumb-screw,
to make his wife wince a little. Such creatures
arc sometimes convenient in a household of
wrath.

"Could I speak with you alone, sir?" said
Mr. Clarke Jones, a little anxiously.

"Certainly; come into the library, Jones,"
said Laurencw. "Here, Baker! take Mr. Jones's
coat and bring up the brandy." He knew the
man, and intended to press him for a loan.
Jones had money, and was not close-fisted.

Baker opened a small spirit-case, brought hot
water, set glasses, stirred the fire, then vanished.
Mr. Jones mixed, without further invitation, a
remarkably stiff tumbler of grog, and drank half
of it at a draught scalding hot.

"Well, Mr. Jones, and what is it?" said
Laurence, when he had finished. "A poacher
caught, or a coal-mine discovered? You have
always an eye to my interests"— with a slight
sneer— " and I expect some day will make my
fortune—or your own out of mine."

"He! he! lie! very good!" laughed Mr.
Jones, boisterously; "more likely yours than
mine! A very little would do for me, while
gentlemen like you take a deal to keep you up!
He! he! he!"

"But your business, to-day?" said Laurence.

"You are quite sure we shall not be interrupted?"
said Mr. Jones, looking round. It was
a nervous matter that he had undertaken, and
even he, as he expressed it afterwards, boggled
at it.

"Interrupted?" said Laurence, disdainfully.
"By whom?"

' I thought, perhaps, Mrs. Grantley might
come in, you know," said Jones, with a leer,
and finished his tumbler.

"This is not the business," said Laurence.
He would have liked to kick the fellow, but is
it wise to kick your goose when you are going
to whistle to it to lay golden eggs?

"Well, air, to tell the truth, it is rather a
delicate subject to touch on," said Mr. Jones,
suddenly. " It is about Mrs. Laurence Grantley
herself."

"Well, Jones, and what about Mrs. Laurence
Grantley?"

Jones thought for a minute, rubbing his rough
chin very hard.

"Who was she, sir, if I may make bold to
ask?"

"Don't you know? She was the daughter of
the late, Sir Thomas Sibson, of the Grange,
member for the county," said Laurence, with
an air of profound indifference. " A good old
family; and I understand the value of race
almost as well as you understand the pedigree
of a horse."

"And her mother?"

"Oh! her mother was better still; one of the
Lascelles people. She died at the birth of her
daughter, in Italy."

"Died at the birth of her daughter, in Italy,
and was one of the Laacelles people," repeated
Mr. Jones, still musingly. He took his red,
coarse under-lip between his finger and thumb,
and rubbed it up like a schoolboy's " cherry."
"Pray, sir, did Mrs. Grantley tell you all this
herself?"

"Who else could?" said Laurence, shortly,
not quite liking the conversation.

"It is important to know if Mrs. Laurence
Grantley herself told you all this," persisted the
lawyer.

"You are subjecting me to rather a strange
examination," said Laurence, with a glance that
boded no good.

"Sir, sir, I have a grave matter in hand—
one affecting your whole life, your name, your
position, everything you hold dearest," said
.Mr. Jones. "Trust me for one short moment.
I have your interest at heart—upon my soul I
have! Yet I must try my ground before I give
myself up, else you know, where am I?" said
Mr. Jones, pathetically.

Laurence laughed. " Well, well! fire away,
Jones," he said, with sudden familiarity; for
Laurence, with all his irritable temper, had a
keen sense of the ludicrous. " Go on with your
examination in chief. I will answer." He flung
himself back in his chair, with his hands thrust
deep into his pockets, humming an air of La
Gazza Ladra.

"Thank you, sir, thank you! That is like the
gentleman you are. Has, then, Mrs. Laurence
given you any other particulars of her mother?
said Mr. Jones, resuming his old attitude.

"She has spoken of her sometimes, of course.
I forget what, now. It was not a very lively
subject at any time."

"But she has said that her mother died at her
birth, absolutely?"

"Of course she did. I told you so before."

"Mr. Grantley, it is my painful duty to
inform you that Mrs. Laurence Grantley has told
you what is not true, and what she knows is not
true. Her mother is alive at this hour, and is
not a Lascelles."

"Indeed?" said Laurence, springing up, and
turning very pale. " Yet how does this affect
me—what do I care?" he added, a moment after,
indifferently.

"You have been very grossly deceived—
grossly; but I have written what I would
rather not tell." He handed over a paper
with the broad margin, in cruel handwriting of
the legal kind. Laurence opened the sheet, and
read it. He read it quietly to the end without
comment; but, at each paragraph, his face
became paler and harder; then, folding it up, he
flung himself forward with a laugh—a laugh that
sounded ghasily, with that face rigid and white
as if cut out of stone.