ret Trust.

"If I am right in my own persuasion that such a document as I here
describe is at this moment in Admiral Bartram's possession--a
persuasion based, in the first instance, on the extraordinary words
that I have quoted to you; and, in the second instance, on purely legal
considerations with which it is needless to incumber my letter--if I am
right in this opinion, the discovery of the Secret Trust would be, in
all probability, a most important discovery to your interests. I
will not trouble you with technical reasons, or with references to
my experience in these matters, which only a professional man could
understand. I will merely say that I don't give up your cause as utterly
lost, until the conviction now impressed on my own mind is proved to be
wrong.

"I can add no more, while this important question still remains involved
in doubt; neither can I suggest any means of solving that doubt. If the
existence of the Trust was proved, and if the nature of the stipulations
contained in it was made known to me, I could then say positively
what the legal chances were of your being able to set up a Case on the
strength of it: and I could also tell you whether I should or should
not feel justified in personally undertaking that Case under a private
arrangement with yourself.

"As things are, I can make no arrangement, and offer no advice. I can
only put you confidentially in possession of my private opinion, leaving
you entirely free to draw your own inferences from it, and regretting
that I cannot write more confidently and more definitely than I
have written here. All that I could conscientiously say on this very
difficult and delicate subject, I have said.

"Believe me, dear madam, faithfully yours,

"JOHN LOSCOMBE.

"P.S.--I omitted one consideration in my last letter, which I may
mention here, in order to show you that no point in connection with the
case has escaped me. If it had been possible to show that Mr. Vanstone
was _domiciled_ in Scotland at the time of his death, we might have
asserted your interests by means of the Scotch law, which does not allow
a husband the power of absolutely disinheriting his wife. But it
is impossible to assert that Mr. Vanstone was legally domiciled in
Scotland. He came there as a visitor only; he occupied a furnished house
for the season; and he never expressed, either by word or deed, the
slightest intention of settling permanently in the North."

IX.

_From Mrs.