“And what of my father all this time? Was the old intercourse kept up between them?” “I cannot tell you. I do not remember that his name occurred till the memorable case came on before the House of Commons--the inquiry, as it was called, into Colonel Barrington's conduct in the case of Edwardes, a British-born subject of his Majesty, serving in the army of the Rajah of Luckerabad. You have, perhaps, heard of it?” “Was that the celebrated charge of torturing a British subject?” “The same; the vilest conspiracy that ever was hatched, and the cruellest persecution that ever broke a noble heart. And yet there were men of honor, men of purest fame and most unblemished character, who harkened in to that infamous cry, and actually sent out emissaries to India to collect evidence against my poor nephew. For a while the whole country rang with the case. The low papers, which assailed the Government, made it matter of attack on the nature of the British rule in India, and the ministry only sought to make George the victim to screen themselves from public indignation. It was Admiral Byng's case once more. But I have no temper to speak of it, even after this lapse of years; my blood boils now at the bare memory of that foul and perjured association. If you would follow the story, I will send you the little published narrative to your room, but, I beseech you, do not again revert to it. How I have betrayed myself to speak of it I know not. For many a long year I have prayed to be able to forgive one man, who has been the bitterest enemy of our name and race. I have asked for strength to bear the burden of our calamity, but more earnestly a hundred-fold I have entreated that forgiveness might enter my heart, and that if vengeance for this cruel wrong was at hand, I could be able to say, 'No, the time for such feeling is gone by.' Let me not, then, be tempted by any revival of this theme to recall all the sorrow and all the indignation it once caused me. This infamous book contains the whole story as the world then believed it. You will read it with interest, for it concerned one whom your father dearly loved. But, again. I say, when we meet again let us not return to it. These letters, too, will amuse you; they are the diaries of your father's early life in India as much as George's, but of them we can talk freely.” It was so evident that she was speaking with a forced calm, and that all her self-restraint might at any moment prove unequal to the effort she was making, that Conyers, affecting to have a few words to say to Stapylton's messenger, stole away, and hastened to his room to look over the letters and the volume she had given him.