that he was personally interested and concerned for the
new claimant, he guardedly avoided giving any denial to the fact.

For three weeks did MacNaghten continue to search through immense masses
of papers and documents; he ransacked musty drawers of mustier cabinets;
he waded through piles of correspondence, in the hope of some faint
flickering of light, some chance phrase that might lead him to the right
track; but without success! He employed trusty and sharp-witted agents
to trace back, through England, the journey my father and mother had
come by, but so secretly had every step of that wedding-tour been
conducted, that no clew remained.

Amidst the disappointments of this ineffectual pursuit, there came,
besides, the disheartening reflection that from those who were most
intimately acquainted with my father's affairs he met neither counsel
nor co-operation. On the contrary, Crowther's manner was close and
secret on every matter of detail, and as to the chances of a suit,
avowed how little ground they had for resistance. Fagan even went
further, and spoke with an assumed regret that my father should have
made no provision for those belonging to him.

All these were, however, as nothing to the misery of that day in which
McNaughten was obliged to break the disclosure to my mother, and explain
to her the position of ruin and humiliation in which she was placed!
She was still weak and debilitated from her illness, her bodily strength
impaired, and her mind broken by suffering, when this new shock came
upon her; nor could she at first be made to understand the full measure
of her misfortune, nor to what it exactly tended. That the home of her
husband was no longer to be hers was a severe blow; it was endeared to
her by so many of the tenderest recollections. It was all that really
remained associated with him she had lost. "But perhaps," thought she,
"this is the law of the country: such are the inevitable necessities of
the land." Her boy would, if he lived, one day possess it for his own,
and upon this thought she fell back for consolation.

MacNaghten did not venture in his first interview to undeceive her; a
second and even a third passed over without his being equal to the task:
but the inexorable course of law gave, at last, no time for further
delay. The tenants of the estate had received formal notice to pay the
amount of their several holdings into court, pending the litigation of
the property. A peremptory