r. "Most unfortunate," he said,
folding it up and puffing out his cheeks; "but it's too late. The name
of Krill was in those printed bills--a portrait also, and now--"

"Well, what?" asked Paul, seeing the lawyer hesitated.

"Come inside and you'll see," said Pash, and conducted Beecot into the
inner room.

Here sat two ladies. The elder was a woman of over fifty, but who looked
younger, owing to her fresh complexion and plump figure. She had a firm
face, with hard blue eyes and a rather full-lipped mouth. Her hair was
white, and there was a great deal of it. Under a widow's cap it was
dressed _a la_ Marie Antoinette, and she looked very handsome in a
full-blown, flowery way. She had firm, white hands, rather large, and,
as she had removed her black gloves, these, Paul saw, were covered with
cheap rings. Altogether a respectable, well-dressed widow, but evidently
not a lady.

Nor was the girl beside her, who revealed sufficient similarity of
features to announce herself the daughter of the widow. There was the
same fresh complexion, full red lips and hard blue eyes. But the hair
was of a golden color, and fashionably dressed. The young woman--she
likewise was not a lady--was also in black.

"This," said Pash, indicating the elder woman, who smiled, "is Mrs.
Lemuel Krill."

"The wife of the man who called himself Aaron Norman," went on the
widow; "and this," she indicated her daughter, "is his heiress."

CHAPTER XI

A CUCKOO IN THE NEST

Paul looked from the fresh-colored woman who spoke so smoothly and so
firmly to the apish lawyer hunched in his chair with a sphinx-like look
on his wrinkled face. For the moment, so taken aback was he by this
astounding announcement, that he could not speak. The younger woman
stared at him with her hard blue eyes, and a smile played round her full
lips. The mother also looked at him in an engaging way, as though she
rather admired his youthful comeliness in spite of his well-brushed,
shabby apparel.

"I don't know what you mean," said Beecot at length, "Mr. Pash?"

The lawyer aroused himself to make a concise statement of the case. "So
far as I understand," he said in his nervous, irritable way, "these
ladies claim to be the wife and daughter of Lemuel Krill, whom we knew
as Aaron Norman."

"And I think by his real name also," said the elder woman in her deep,
smooth contralto voice, and with the display of an admirable set of
teeth. "The bills advertising the re