“This will never do,” said Mr. Scrivener hurriedly. “This is pre-judging the case altogether. No one can imagine that with no more proof than these papers (which may be genuine or not, I can’t say on the spur of the moment) we are going to believe a wild assertion which strikes at the honour of a family----” “Look here,” said Mr. Gus; his mouth began to get dry with excitement, he could scarcely get out the words. “Look here, there’s nothing about the honour of the family. There’s nothing to torment _her_ about. Do you hear, you, whoever you are! My mother, Gussy Gaveston, died five and thirty years ago, when I was born. Poor little thing,” cried the man who was her son, with a confusion of pathos and satisfaction, “it was the best thing she could do. She wasn’t one to live and put other people to shame, not she. She was a bit of a girl, with no harm in her. The man she married was a young fellow of no account, no older than him there, Paul, my young brother; but all the same she would have been Lady Markham had she lived; and I am her son that cost her her life, the only one of the first family, Sir William’s eldest. That’s easily seen when you look at us both,” he added with a short laugh; “there can’t be much doubt, can there, which is the eldest, I or he?” Here again there was a strange pause. Colonel Fleetwood, who was the spectator who had his wits about him, turned round upon old Mr. Markham, who ventured to chuckle again in echo of poor Gus’s harsh little laugh, which meant no mirth. “What the devil do you find to laugh at?” he said, his lip curling over his white teeth with rage, to which he could give vent no other way. But he was relieved of his worst fear, and he could not help turning with a certain interest to the intruder. Gus was not a noble figure in his old-fashioned long-tailed black-coat, with his formal air; but there was not the least appearance of imposture about him. The serene air of satisfaction and self-importance which returned to his face when the excitement of his little speech subsided, his evident conviction that he was in his right place, and confidence in his position, contradicted to the eyes of the man of the world all suggestion of fraud. He might be deceived: but he himself believed in the rights he was claiming, and he was not claiming them in any cruel way.