"I had made a mistake. She knew nothing about that. I took good care she should not. There was no doubt about her being the boy's mother, and no doubt she was not Elizabeth. She had no claim on me." "No claim!" Charles Aston stood up and faced him, "not even the claim of the widow--her one son dead. No claim, when for all those years those two items of humanity represented in your perverse mind the two people nearest--I won't say dearest--to you. No claim!" He stopped and walked away to the window. Peter smiled tolerantly. He enjoyed making this kind, generous man flash out with indignation. It was all very high-flown and impossible, but it suited Charles Aston. To-day, however, he was too engrossed in his own affairs to get much satisfaction from it. "Well, well, don't let us argue about it. We don't think alike in these matters. The point I want to consult you about is not my susceptibility to sentiment, but the chances of my picking up a clue twenty years old." "I should say they were hardly worth considering." He spoke deliberately, turning from the window to resume his place by the table. The fight had begun; they had crossed blades at last. "There is a very good detective called Chance and a better one called Luck." "You have secured their services?" "I am not certain yet. Can you help me?" He made the appeal with calculated directness, knowing his man and his aversion to evasion, but if he expected him to hesitate he was disappointed. "No, I can do nothing. I tried for five years to bring you to some sense of your responsibility in this matter. You were not frank with me then, it seems. I can do nothing now." "And have lost all interest in it, I suppose?" "No. It is your interest that rises and falls with the occasion, but I decline to have anything to do with it. If--as I do not believe--Elizabeth is still alive she and your son have done without your help for twenty years and can do without it still." "They have doubtless plenty of friends." "Let us hope so. What was the name of the Liverpool woman?" "Priestly. What does it matter? The question is, I must find my son somehow, for I must have an heir." "Adopt one." "As did Aymer?" He shot a questioning glance at him. "It's such a risk. I might not be so lucky. Sons like Christopher are not to be had for nothing." "No, they are not," said Charles Aston drily. "They are the result of years of love and patience, of generous tolerance, of unquenchable courage. They bring days of joy which must be paid for with hours of anxiety and nights of pain. Were you prepared to give your son this, even if you had taken him to you as a boy?" Peter waved his big hand again. "I quite admit all that is needed to produce men of your pattern, Cousin Charles, and I have the profoundest admiration for the result; but I am not ambitious; I should be content to produce the ordinary successful man." "I think Christopher will score a success."