Mr. Bonnithorne shifted uneasily. "Nothing," he said, meekly, but the curious smile still played about his downcast face. Then there was silence again. "Do you know that Mercy Fisher is likely to regain her sight?" said Hugh. "You don't say so? Dear me, dear me!" said the lawyer, sincere at last. "In all the annals of jurisprudence there is no such extraordinary case of identity being conclusively provable by one witness only, and of that witness becoming blind. Odd, isn't it?" Hugh Ritson smiled coldly. "Odd? Say providential," he answered. "I believe that's what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a disaster that is made imminent by your own short-sightedness." "A disaster, indeed, if her sight ceases to be so providentially short," said the lawyer. "Get the man out of the way, and the woman is all right," said Hugh. He picked a letter out of a drawer, and handed it to Mr. Bonnithorne. "You will remember that the other was to have shipped to Australia." Mr. Bonnithorne bowed his head. "This letter is from the man for whom he intended to go out--an old friend of my father. Answer it, Bonnithorne." "In what terms?" asked the lawyer. "Say that a long illness prevented, but that Paul Ritson is now prepared to fulfill his engagement." "And what then?" "What then?" Hugh Ritson echoed. "Why, what do you think?" "Send him?" with a motion of the thumb over the shoulder. "Of course," said Hugh. Again the cynical tone caught Hugh Ritson's ear, and he glanced up quickly, but made no remark. He was now dressed. "I am ready," and on reaching the door and taking a last look round the room, he added: "I'll have the best of this furniture removed to the Ghyll to-morrow. The house has been unbearable of late, and I've been forced to spend most of my time down here." "Then you don't intend to give him much grace?" asked Bonnithorne. "Not an hour." The lawyer bent his forehead very low at that moment. CHAPTER V. The sun was high over the head of Hindscarth, but a fresh breeze was blowing from the north, and the walk to the Ghyll was bracing. Mr. Bonnithorne talked little on the way, but Hugh Ritson's spirits rose sensibly, and he chatted cheerfully on indifferent subjects. It was still some minutes short of nine o'clock when they reached the house. The servants were bustling about in clean aprons and caps. "Have the gentlemen arrived?" asked Hugh. "Not yet, sir," answered one of the servants--it was old Dinah Wilson. The two men stepped up to Hugh Ritson's room. There the table was spread for breakfast. The lawyer glanced at the chairs, and said: "Then you have invited other friends?" Hugh nodded his head, and sat down at the organ. "Three or four neighbors of substance," he said, opening the case. "In a matter like this it is well to have witnesses." Bonnithorne replied with phlegm: "But what about the feelings of the man who is so soon to be turned out of the house?"