ulkily. "She would
have let me know if she were in want. I had told her she could come
back when she had had enough of it."

"And this poor woman, whose son was killed. What of her?"

"I don't know anything about her except she wasn't Elizabeth."

"You had believed her so for twenty years."

"I had made a mistake. She knew nothing about that. I took good care
she should not. There was no doubt about her being the boy's mother,
and no doubt she was not Elizabeth. She had no claim on me."

"No claim!" Charles Aston stood up and faced him, "not even the claim
of the widow--her one son dead. No claim, when for all those years
those two items of humanity represented in your perverse mind the two
people nearest--I won't say dearest--to you. No claim!" He stopped
and walked away to the window.

Peter smiled tolerantly. He enjoyed making this kind, generous man
flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible,
but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in
his own affairs to get much satisfaction from it.

"Well, well, don't let us argue about it. We don't think alike in
these matters. The point I want to consult you about is not my
susceptibility to sentiment, but the chances of my picking up a clue
twenty years old."

"I should say they were hardly worth considering." He spoke
deliberately, turning from the window to resume his place by the
table. The fight had begun; they had crossed blades at last.

"There is a very good detective called Chance and a better one called
Luck."

"You have secured their services?"

"I am not certain yet. Can you help me?"

He made the appeal with calculated directness, knowing his man and his
aversion to evasion, but if he expected him to hesitate he was
disappointed.

"No, I can do nothing. I tried for five years to bring you to some
sense of your responsibility in this matter. You were not frank with
me then, it seems. I can do nothing now."

"And have lost all interest in it, I suppose?"

"No. It is your interest that rises and falls with the occasion, but I
decline to have anything to do with it. If--as I do not
believe--Elizabeth is still alive she and your son have done without
your help for twenty years and can do without it still."

"They have doubtless plenty of friends."

"Let us hope so. What was the name of the Liverpool woman?"

"Priestly. What does it matter? The question is, I must find my son
somehow, for I must