himself, and trusted by the choice both to cheat his own conscience
and to preserve the wealth and dignity for his son. God, to whom he has
gone, alone knows the truth of it, but with such a man it may very well
have been as I think. I say that both were interested, for it seems, as
he told me afterwards, that the lawyer was to receive a great sum--ten
thousand pounds--under the will of the dead lord for whom he had done
much during his lifetime. But if Ralph were proved to be the heir this
sum would have been his and not the lawyer's, for the money was part
of his father's inheritance; therefore it was worth just ten thousand
pounds to that lawyer to convince himself and the false lord that Ralph
was not the man, and therefore it was that I found him so easy to deal
with.

Now after his father was dead the lawyer tried to persuade the son to
take no notice of his dying words, and to let the matter rest where it
was, seeing that he had nothing to gain and much to lose. But this he
would not consent to, for, as I have said, he was honest, declaring that
he could not be easy in his mind till he knew the truth, and that if he
did not go to find it out himself he would send others to do so for him.
As the lawyer desired this least of anything, he gave way, and they set
out upon their journey--which in those days was a very great journey
indeed--arriving at last in safety at our stead in the Transkei; for,
whether he liked it or not, his companion--who now was called Lord
Glenthirsk--would not be turned aside from the search or suffer him to
prosecute it alone.

At length, when all the tale was told, the lawyer looked at me with his
sharp eyes and said, through the interpreter:

"Vrouw Botmar, you have heard the story, tell us what you know. Is the