not know that you can. I am prepared, if
not to prove, at least to convince you that he and his son's mother
were not married."

Mr. Graeme was for a moment silent. Then he laughed a little laugh--not
a pleasant one. "Another of Time's clownish tricks!" he said to
himself: "the earl the factor on the family-estate!" Donal did not like
the way he took it, but saw how natural it was.

"I hope you have known me long enough," he said, "to believe I have
contrived nothing?"

"Excuse me, Mr. Grant: the whole business looks suspicious. The girl
was dying! You knew it!"

"I do not understand you."

"What did you marry her for?"

"To make her my wife."

"Pray what could be the good of that except--?"

"Does it need any explanation but that we loved each other?"

"You will find it difficult to convince the world that such was your
sole motive."

"Having no care for the opinion of the world, I shall be satisfied if I
convince you. The world needs never hear of the thing. Would you, Mr.
Graeme, have had me not marry her, because the world, including not a
few honest men like yourself, would say my object was the property?"

"Don't put the question to me; I am not the proper person to answer it.
There is not a man in a hundred millions who with the chance would not
have done the same, or whom all the rest would not blame for doing it.
It would have been better for you, however, that there had been no
will."

"How?"

"It makes it look the more like a scheme:--the will might have been
disputed."

"Why do you say--might have been?"

"Because it is not worth disputing now. If the marriage stands, it
annuls the will."

"I did not know; and I suppose she did not know either. Or perhaps she
wanted to make the thing sure: if the marriage was not enough, the will
would be--she may have thought. But I knew nothing of it."

"You did not?"

"Of course I did not."

Mr. Graeme held his peace. For the first time he doubted Donal's word.

"But I wanted to have a little talk with you," resumed Donal. "I want
to know whether you think your duty all to the owner of the land, or in
any measure to the tenants also."

"That is easy to answer: one employed by the landlord can owe the
tenant nothing."

It was not just the answer he would have given to another questioner.

"Do you not owe him justice?" asked Donal.

"Every legal advantage I ought to take for my employer."

"Even to the grinding of the faces of the poor?"