"I have searched effectually--and I don't suppose the old clerk of the church blessed me for keeping him there--and I am prepared to take an affidavit, if necessary, that no such marriage is recorded in the book," continued the elder lawyer. "What could have been the aim or object of that letter, I cannot fathom." "Mr. Carr will not come into the money, then?" said Mr. Littelby. "Of course not, so far as things look at present. I thought it was very strange, if such a thing had been there, that Fauntleroy did not let it be known," he emphatically added. "You are sure you have fully searched?" "Mr. Littelby, I have fully searched," was the reply; and the lawyer was not pleased at being asked the question after what he had said. "There is no such marriage entered there; and rely upon it no such marriage ever was entered there. I might go farther and say, with safety in my opinion, that there never was such marriage entered anywhere." "Then why should Robert Carr, the elder, have written the letter?" "_Did_ he write it? It may be a question." "No, he never wrote it," interposed George Mynn, looking up. "There was some wicked plot concocted--I don't say by whom, and I can't say it--of which this letter was the prologue. Perhaps the epilogue--the insertion of the marriage in the register--was frustrated; possibly this letter was found before its time, and the despatching it to Mr. Fauntleroy marred the whole. How can we say?" "We can't say," returned old Mynn. "One thing I can say and affirm--that there's no record; and had the letter been a genuine one, the entry would be there now." "I wonder if Mr. Fauntleroy believes the entry to be there?" cried Mr. Littelby. "I am nearly sure that he has not given notice of the contrary to Mrs. Carr. She would have told me if he had." "If Fauntleroy has been so foolish as to take the information in the letter for granted, without sending to see the register, he must put up with the consequences," said old Mynn; "I shall not enlighten him." He spoke as he felt--cross. Mr. Mynn was not pleased at having spent the best part of the day over what he had found to be a fool's errand; neither did he like to have been startled unnecessarily. He sat down and drew the papers before him, saying something to the effect that perhaps they could attend to their legitimate business, now that the other was disposed of. Mr. Littelby caught the cue, and resolved to say no more in that office of Carr _versus_ Carr. And so, it was a sort of diamond cut diamond. Mr. Fauntleroy had said nothing to Mynn and Mynn of his private information; and Mynn and Mynn would say nothing to Mr. Fauntleroy of theirs.