o, you must then follow Ardworth, with that child in his keeping,
to Matthew Fielden's house, whose address you find noted in the paper I
gave you, together with many other memoranda as to Ardworth's creditors
and those whom he is likely to have come across."

"John Ardworth, I see!"

"John Walter Ardworth,--commonly called Walter; he, like me, preferred
to be known only by his second baptismal name. He, because of a
favourite Radical godfather; I, because Honore is an inconvenient
Gallicism. And perhaps when Honore Mirabeau (my godfather) went out
of fashion with the sans-culottes, my father thought Gabriel a safer
designation. Now I have told you all."

"What is the mother's maiden name?"

"Her maiden name was Clavering; she was married under that of Dalibard,
her first husband."

"And," said Grabman, looking over the notes in the paper given to him,
"it is at Liverpool that the husband died, and whence the child was sent
away?"

"It is so; to Liverpool you will go first. I tell you fairly, the task
is difficult, for hitherto it has foiled me. I knew but one man who,
without flattery, could succeed, and therefore I spared no pains to find
out Nicholas Grabman. You have the true ferret's faculty; you, too, are
a lawyer, and snuff evidence in every breath. Find us a son,--a legal
son,--a son to be shown in a court of law, and the moment he steps into
the lands and the Hall of Laughton, you have five thousand pounds."

"Can I have a bond to that effect?"

"My bond, I fear, is worth no more than my word. Trust to the last; if I
break it, you know enough of my secrets to hang me!"

"Don't talk of hanging; I hate that subject. But stop. If found, does
this son succeed? Did this Mr. Vernon leave no heir; this other sister
continue single, or prove barren?"

"Oh, true! He, Mr. Vernon, who by will took the name of St. John, he
left issue; but only one son still survives, a minor and unmarried. The
sister, too, left a daughter; both are poor, sickly creatures,--their
lives not worth a straw. Never mind them. You find Vincent Braddell,
and he will not be long out of his property, nor you out of your 5,000
pounds! You see, under these circumstances a bond might become dangerous
evidence!"

Grabman emitted a fearful and tremulous chuckle,--a laugh like the laugh
of a superstitious man when you talk to him of ghosts and churchyards.
He chuckled, and his hair bristled. But after a pause, in which he
seemed to wrestle w