His last letter, written two years before that
date, containing a request for money, which the father, himself made a
bankrupt by reverses, could not give, had stated that he was about to
seek his fortune elsewhere--since then they had heard nothing of him."

"Ahem! Well, you will perhaps let me know where any relations of his
are yet to be found, and I will look up the former suit, and go into
the whole case without delay. In the meantime, you do right, sir--if you
will allow me to say it--not to disclose either your own identity or a
hint of your intentions. It is no use putting suspicion on its guard.
And my search for this certificate must be managed with the greatest
address. But, by the way--speaking of identity--there can be no
difficulty, I hope, in proving yours."

Philip was startled. "Why, I am greatly altered."

"But probably your beard and moustache may contribute to that change;
and doubtless, in the village where you lived, there would be many with
whom you were in sufficient intercourse, and on whose recollection,
by recalling little anecdotes and circumstances with which no one but
yourself could be acquainted, your features would force themselves along
with the moral conviction that the man who spoke to them could be no
other but Philip Morton--or rather Beaufort."

"You are right; there must be many such. There was not a cottage in the
place where I and my dogs were not familiar and half domesticated."

"All's right, so far, then. But I repeat, we must not be too sanguine.
Law is not justice--"

"But God is," said Philip; and he left the room.

CHAPTER V.

"Volpone. A little in a mist, but not dejected;
Never--but still myself."
BEN JONSON: Volpone.

"Peregrine. Am I enough disguised?
Mer. Ay. I warrant you.
Per. Save you, fair lady."--Ibid.

It is an ill wind that blows nobody good. The ill wind that had blown
gout to Lord Lilburne had blown Lord Lilburne away from the injury he
had meditated against what he called "the object of his attachment." How
completely and entirely, indeed, the state of Lord Lilburne's feelings
depended on the state of his health, may be seen in the answer he gave
to his valet, when, the morning after the first attack of the gout,
that worthy person, by way of cheering his master, proposed to ascertain
something as to the movements of one with whom Lord Lilburne professed
to be so violently in love,--"Confound you,