He opened a cupboard in the wall and took down a bunch of keys. Selecting one key, he stepped up to a cabinet and opened it. In a compartment were many loose papers. Now to see if by chance there existed a will already. He glanced at the papers one by one and threw them aside. When he had finished his inspection he took a hasty turn about the room. No trace--he had been sure of it! Again the deep sob came from within. Hugh Ritson walked noiselessly to the inner door, opened it slightly, bent his head, and listened. He turned away with an expression of pain, picked up his hat, and went out. The night was very dark. He strode a few paces down the lonnin and then back to the porch. Uncovering his head, he let the night wind cool his hot temples. His breath came audibly and hard. He was turning again into the house when his eye was arrested by a light near the turning of the high-road. The light was approaching; he walked toward it, and met Josiah Bonnithorne. The lawyer was jouncing along toward the house with a lantern in his hand. "Didn't you meet the stableman?" said Hugh in an eager whisper. "No." "The blockhead must have taken the old pack-horse road on the fell-side. One would be safe in that fool's stupidity. You have heard what has happened?" "I have." "There is no will already." "And your father is insensible?" "Yes." "Then none shall be made." There was a pause, in which the darkness itself seemed full of speech. The lantern cast its light only on an open cart-shed in the lane. "If your mother is the Grace Ormerod who married Robert Lowther and had a son by him, then Paul was that son--the heir to Lowther's conscience-money." "Bonnithorne," said Hugh Ritson--his voice trembled and broke--"if it is so, then it is so, and we need do nothing. Remember, he is my father. It is not within belief that he wants to disinherit his own son for the son of another man." Mr. Bonnithorne broke into a half-smothered laugh, and stepped close into the cobble-hedge, keeping the lantern down. "Your father--yes. But you have seen to-day what that may come to. He has always held you under his hand. Paul has been the old man's favorite." "No doubt of that." Hugh crept close to the lawyer. He was wrestling in the coil of a tragic temptation. "If he recovers consciousness, he may be tempted to recognize as his own his wife's illegitimate son. That"--the low tone was one of withering irony--"will keep her from dishonor, and you from the estates." "At least he is my brother--my mother's son. If my father wishes to provide for him, God forbid that we should prevent." Once more the half-smothered laugh came through the darkness.