now would be more than he could bear. I have little doubt that the cause is lost, and I am only eager that poor Augustus should not feel it was lost through him." She was greatly agitated as she spoke, and, with a hurried farewell, she turned and left him.

CHAPTER LXII.

THE CLIENT AND HIS LAWYER.

WHEN the rest of the party had left the dinner-room, and Augustus Bramleigh and Mr. Sedley found themselves alone, a silence of several minutes ensued; a very solemn pause each felt it, well knowing that at such a moment the slightest word may be the signal for disclosures which involve a destiny. Up to this, nothing had been said on either side of "the cause; and though Sedley had travelled across Europe to speak of it, he waited with decorous reserve till his host should invite him to the topic.

Bramleigh, an awkward and timid man at the best of times, was still more so when he found himself in a situation in which he should give the initiative. As the entertainer of a guest, too, he fancied that to introduce his personal interests as matter of conversation would be in bad taste, and so he fidgeted, and passed the decanters across the table with a nervous impatience, trying to seem at his ease, and stammering out at last some unmeaning question about the other's journey.

Sedley replied to the inquiry with a cold and measured politeness, as a man might to a matter purely irrelevant.

"The Continent is comparatively new ground to you, Mr. Sedley?"

"Entirely so. I have never been beyond Brussels before this."

"Late years have nearly effaced national peculiarities. One crosses frontiers now, and never remembers a change of country." "Quite so."

"The money, the coinage, perhaps, is the great reminder after all."

"Money is the great reminder of almost everything everywhere, sir," said Sedley, with a stern and decisive tone.

"I am afraid you are right," said Bramleigh, with a faint sigh, and now they seemed to stand on the brink of a precipice, and look over.

and duly witnessed. The birth of the child was also carefully authenticated - there isn't a flaw in the registry, and they'll take care to remind us on the second trial of how freely we scattered our contemptuous sarcasms on the illegitimacy of this connexion on the first record."

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'Is the case hopeless then ?"

Nothing is hopeless where a jury enters, but it is only short of hopeless. Kelson of course says he is sure, and perhaps so should I, in his place. Still they might disagree again: there's a strong repugnance felt by juries against dispossessing an old occupant. All can feel the hardship of his case, and the sympathy for him goes a great way."

"Still this would only serve to protract matters,-they'd bring another action." Of course they would, and Kelson has money!"

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I declare I see no benefit in continuing a hopeless contest."

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edy."

Don't be hopeless then, that's the rem

Bramleigh made a slight gesture of impatience, and slight as it was, Sedley observed it.

"You have never treated this case as your father would have done, Mr. Bramleigh. He had a rare spirit to face a contest.. I remember one day hinting to him that if this claim could be backed by money it would be a very formidable suit, and his answer was:-When I strike my flag, Sedley, the enemy will find the prize was scarcely worth fighting for.' I knew what he meant was, he'd have mortgaged the estate to every shilling of its value, before there arose a question of his title."

"I don't believe it, sir; I tell you to your face I don't believe it," cried Bramleigh, passionately. "My father was a man of honour, and never would have descended to such duplicity."

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My dear sir, I have not come twelve hundred miles to discuss a question in ethics, nor will I risk myself in a discussion with you. I repeat, sir, that had your father lived to meet this contention, we should not have found ourselves where we are to-day. Your father was a man of considerable capacity, Mr. Bramleigh. He conducted a large and important house with consummate skill; brought up his family handsomely; and had he been spared, would have seen every one of them in positions of honour and consequence."

"To every word in his praise I subscribe heartily and gratefully; " and there was a tremor in his voice as Bramleigh spoke.

"He has been spared a sad spectacle, I

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Lawyer without a suit! Why, my dear sir, there will be soon nothing to litigate. You and all belonging to you were an imposition and a fraud. There, there! It's nothing to grow angry over; how could you or any of you suspect your father's legitimacy? You accepted the situation as you found it, as all of us do. That you regarded Pracontal as a cheat was no fault of yours, he says so himself. I have seen him and talked with him; he was at Kelson's when I called last week, and old Kelson said, 'My client is in the next room: he says you treated him rudely one day he went to your office. I wish you'd step in and say a civil word or two. It would do good, Sedley. I tell you, it would do good! and he laid such a significant stress on the word, that I walked straight in and said how very sorry I felt for having expressed myself in a way that could offend him. At all events, sir,' said I, if you will not accept my apology for myself, let me beseech you to separate the interest of my client from my rudeness, and let not Mr. Bramleigh be prejudiced because his lawyer was ill-mannered.' It's all forgotten, never to be recalled,' said he, shaking my hand. Has Kelson told you my intentions towards Bramleigh?'

"He has told me nothing,' said I. "Tell him, Kelson. I can't make the matter plain as you can. Tell Mr. Sedley what we were thinking of.'

"In one word, sir, his plan was a partition of the property. He would neither disturb your title, nor dispute your name. You should be the Bramleighs of Castello, merely paying him a rent charge of four thousand a year. Kelson suggested more, but he said a hundred thousand francs was ample, and he made no scruple of adding that he was never master of so many sous in his life. "And what does Kelson say to this?' asked I.

66 6 Kelson says what Sedley would say that it is a piece of Quixotism worthy of Hanwell.'

"Ma foi,' said Pracontal, it is not the first time I have fired in the air.'

fit to listen to. At last I obtained leave to submit the whole affair to you, not by letter that they wouldn't have - but personally, and there, in one word, is the reason of my journey.

"Before I left town, however, I saw the Attorney-General, whose opinion I had already taken on certain points of the case. He was a personal friend of your father, and willingly entered upon it. When I told him Pracontal's proposal he smiled dubiously, and said, 'Why, it's a confession of defeat; the man must know his case will break down, or he never would offer such conditions.'

"I tried to persuade him that without knowing, seeing, hearing this Frenchman, it would not be easy to imagine such an action proceeding from a sane man, but that his exalted style of talk and his inflated sentimentality made the thing credible. He wants to belong to a family, to be owned and accepted as some one's relative. The man is dying of the shame of his isolation. Let him marry.'

"So he means, and I hear to Bramleigh's widow, Lady Augusta.'

"He laughed heartily at this, and said, It's the only encumbrance on the property.' And now, Mr. Bramleigh, you are to judge, if you can; is this the offer of generosity, or is it the crafty proposal of a beaten adversary? I don't mean to say it is an easy point to decide on, or that a man can hit it off at once. Consult those about you; take into consideration the situation you stand in and all its dangers; bethink you what an adverse verdict may bring if we push them to a trial; and even if the proposal be, as Mr. Attorney thinks, the cry of weakness, is it wise to disregard it?"

"Would you have laid such a proposal before my father, Sedley?" said Bramleigh, with a scarcely perceptible smile.

"Not for five hundred pounds, sir."

"I thought not."

too, that fine-hearted fellow, what is to be- | come of him? And yet, Sedley," cried he suddenly, "if either of them were to suspect that this-this-what shall I call it? - this arrangement - stood on no basis of right, but was simply an act of generous forbearance, I'd stake my life on it, they'd refuse it,"

"You must not consult them then, that's clear."

"But I will not decide till I do so."

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utes

"Don't let us go so far, Gusty. Let us deal with the case as it stands before us.` Say No,' and have done with the matter at once."

Augustus leaned his head between his hands and fell into a deep vein of thought. "You've had your trial of humble fortune now, Gusty," continued Jack, "and I don't see that it has soured you; I see no signs of fretting or irritability about you, old fellow; I'll even say that I never re

"Think of Nelly, Jack."

CHAPTER LXIV.

A FIRST GLEAM OF LIGHT.

AFTER a sleepless, anxious night, in which he canvassed all that Sedley had told him, Bramleigh presented himself at Jack's bedside as the day was breaking. Though the sailor was not worldly-wise, nor endowed with much knowledge of life, he had, as Augustus knew, a rough and ready judgment which, allied to a spirit of high honour, rarely failed in detecting that course which in the long run proved best. Jack, too, was no casuist, no hair-splitter: he took wide, commonplace views, and in this way was sure to do what nine out of ten ordinary men would approve of, and this was the sort of counsel that Bramleigh now desired to set side by side with his own deeply considered opinion.

Jack listened attentively to his brother's explanation, not once interrupting him by a word or a question till he had finished, and then, laying his hand gently on the other's, said, "You know well, Gusty, that you couldn't do this."

"I thought you would say so, Jack."

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You'd be a fool to part with what you owned, or a knave to sell what did not belong to you."

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My own judgment precisely."

"I'd not bother myself then with Sedley's pros and cons, nor entertain the question about saving what one could out of the wreck. If you haven't a right to a plank in the ship, you have no right to her because she is on the rocks. Say No,' Gusty; say 'No' at once."

"It would be at best a compromise on the life of one man, for Pracontal's son, if he should leave one, could revive the claim."

"Nelly is better able to brave hard fortune than either of us. She never was spoiled when we were rich, and she had no pretensions to lay down when we became poor."

"And yourself, my poor fellow? I've had many a plan of what I meant by you."

"Never waste a thought about me. I'll buy a trabaccolo. They're the handiest coasting craft that ever sailed; and I'll see if the fruit-trade in the Levant won't feed me, and we'll live here, Gusty, all together. Come now, tell me frankly, would you exchange that for Castello, if you had to go back there and live alone eh?"

"I'll not say I would; but

"There's no but; the thing is clear and plain enough. This place wouldn't suit Marion or Temple; but they'll not try it. Take my word for it, of all our fine acquaintances, not one will ever come down here to see how we bear our reduced lot in life. We'll start fresh in the race, and we'll talk of long ago and our grand, times without a touch of repining."

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"I'm quite ready to try it, Jack." "That's well said," said he, grasping his hand, and pressing it affectionately. And you'll say No' to this offer? I knew you would. Not but the Frenchman is a fine fellow, Gusty. I didn't believe it was in his nation to behave as nobly; for, mark you, I have no doubts, no misgivings about his motives. I'd say all was honest and above board in his offer."

"I join you in that opinion, Jack; and one of these days I hope to tell him so."

"That's the way to fight the battle of life," cried the sailor, enthusiastically. "Stand by your guns manfully, and, if you're beaten, haul down your flag in all honour to the fellow who has been able to thrash you. The more you respect him, the higher you esteem yourself. Get rid of that old lawyer as soon as you can, Gusty; he's not a pleasant fellow, and we all want Cutty back again."

arose, and walking over to one side of the room, drew back a small curtain of green silk, disclosing behind it an ornamental screen or "grille" of iron-work.

66 What does that mean?" asked Jack. "That means that the occupant of this room, when devoutly disposed, could be able to hear mass without the trouble of going for it. This little grating here looks into the chapel; and there are evidences about that members of the family who lived at the villa were accustomed to come up here at times to pass days of solitude, and perhaps penance, which, after all, judging from the indulgent character of this little provision here, were probably not over severe."

"Nelly has told me of this chapel. Can we see it?"

I hope it's not sacrilege, but I mean to go in," said Jack, who, mounting on a chair, with a sailor's agility insinuated himself through the aperture, and invited Cutbill to follow.

"No, no; I wasn't brought up a ropedancer," said he, gruffly. "If you can't manage to open the door for me

"But it's what I can. I can push back every bolt. Come round now, and I'll admit you."

By the time Cutbill had reached the entrance, Jack had succeeded in opening the massive doors; and as he flung them wide, a flood of light poured into the little crypt, with its splendid altar and its silver lamps; its floor of tesselated marble, and its ceiling a mass of gilded tracery almost too bright to look on but it was not at the glittering splendour of gold or gems that they now stood enraptured. It was in speechless wonderment of the picture that formed the altar-piece, which was a Madonna a perfect copy, in every lineament and line, of the Flora at Castello. Save that an expression of ecstatic rapture had replaced the look of joyous delight, they were the same, and unquestionably were derived from the same original.

"Do you know that?" cried Cutbill. "Know it! Why, it's our own fresco at Castello."

"And by the same hand, too," cried Cut

"And yet there's a great story in it," said Cutbill, in a low, serious tone. picture was a portrait- a portrait of the painter's daughter; and that painter's daughter was the wife of your grandfather, Montague Bramleigh; and it is her grandchild now, the man called Pracontal, who claims your estates.".

"How do you pretend to know all this?" "I know it chapter and verse. I have gone over the whole history with that old painter's journal before me. I have seen several studies of that girl's face, - Enrichetta Lami,' she was called, and I have read the entry of her marriage with your grandfather in the parish register. A terrible fact for your poor brother, for it clenches his ruin. Was there ever as singular a chance in life as the re-appearance of this face here?"

"I'd call her handsomer in that picture than in our fresco. I wonder if this were painted earlier or later."

"I can answer that question; for the old sacristan who came up here yesterday, and fell to talking about the chapel, mentioned how the painter a gran' maestro, he called him- bargained to be buried at the foot of the altar, and the Marchese had not kept his word, not liking to break up the marble pavement, and had him interred outside the walls, with the prior's grave and a monk at either side of him. His brushes and colours, and his tools for fresco-work, were all buried in the chapel, for they had been blessed by the Pope's Nuncio, after the completion of the basilica at Udine. Haven't I remembered my story well, and the old fellow didn't tell it above nine times over? This was old Lami's last work, and here his last resting-place."

"What is it seems so familiar to me in that name? Every time you have uttered it I am ready to say I have heard of it before."