or secondary
evidence is admitted. I doubt even whether the certificate of the
marriage on which--in the loss or destruction of the register--you lay
so much stress, would be available in itself. But if an examined copy,
it becomes of the last importance, for it will then inform us of the
name of the person who extracted and examined it. Heaven grant it may
not have been the clergyman himself who performed the ceremony, and who,
you say, is dead; if some one else, we should then have a second, no
doubt credible and most valuable witness. The document would thus become
available as proof, and, I think, that we should not fail to establish
our case."

"But this certificate, how is it ever to be found? I told you we had
searched everywhere in vain."

"True; but you say that your mother always declared that the late Mr.
Beaufort had so solemnly assured her, even just prior to his decease,
that it was in existence, that I have no doubt as to the fact. It may be
possible, but it is a terrible insinuation to make, that if Mr. Robert
Beaufort, in examining the papers of the deceased, chanced upon a
document so important to him, he abstracted or destroyed it. If this
should not have been the case (and Mr. Robert Beaufort's moral character
is unspotted--and we have no right to suppose it), the probability is,
either that it was intrusted to some third person, or placed in
some hidden drawer or deposit, the secret of which your father never
disclosed. Who has purchased the house you lived in?"

"Fernside? Lord Lilburne. Mrs. Robert Beaufort's brother."

"Humph--probably, then, he took the furniture and all. Sir, this is a
matter that requires some time for close consideration. With your leave,
I will not only insert in the London papers an advertisement to the
effect that you suggested to Mr. Roger Morton (in case you should have
made a right conjecture as to the object of the man who applied to him),
but I will also advertise for the witness himself. William Smith, you
say, his name is. Did the lawyer employed by Mrs. Beaufort send to
inquire for him in the colony?"

"No; I fear there could not have been time for that. My mother was so
anxious and eager, and so convinced of the justice of her case--"

"That's a pity; her lawyer must have been a sad driveller."

"Besides, now I remember, inquiry was made of his relations in England.
His father, a farmer, was then alive; the answer was that he had
certainly left Australia.