"Sir!--the same to you--I won't trouble you auny farther; it was only out of koindness I called--I am not used to be treated so--sir, I am in his maujesty's service--sir, you will foind that the witness of the marriage is forthcoming; you will think of me then, and, perhaps, be sorry. But I've done, 'Your most obedient humble, sir!'" And the stranger, with a flourish of his hand, turned to the door. At the sight of this determination on the part of his strange guest, a cold, uneasy, vague presentiment seized Mr. Beaufort. There, not flashed, but rather froze, across him the recollection of his brother's emphatic but disbelieved assurances--of Catherine's obstinate assertion of her son's alleged rights--rights which her lawsuit, undertaken on her own behalf, had not compromised;--a fresh lawsuit might be instituted by the son, and the evidence which had been wanting in the former suit might be found at last. With this remembrance and these reflections came a horrible train of shadowy fears,--witnesses, verdict, surrender, spoliation--arrears-- ruin! The man, who had gained the door, turned back and looked at him with a complacent, half-triumphant leer upon his impudent, reckless face. "Sir," then said Mr. Beaufort, mildly, "I repeat that you had better see Mr. Blackwell." The tempter saw his triumph. "I have a secret to communicate which it is best for you to keep snug. How mauny people do you wish me to see about it? Come, sir, there is no need of a lawyer; or, if you think so, tell him yourself. Now or never, Mr. Beaufort." "I can have no objection to hear anything you have to say, sir," said the rich man, yet more mildly than before; and then added, with a forced smile, "though my rights are already too confirmed to admit of a doubt." Without heeding the last assertion, the stranger coolly walked back, resumed his seat, and, placing both arms on the table and looking Mr. Beaufort full in the face, thus proceeded,-- "Sir, of the marriage between Philip Beaufort and Catherine Morton there were two witnesses: the one is dead, the other went abroad--the last is alive still!" "If so," said Mr. Beaufort, who, not naturally deficient in cunning and sense, felt every faculty now prodigiously sharpened, and was resolved to know the precise grounds for alarm,--"if so, why did not the man--it was a servant, sir, a man-servant, whom Mrs. Morton pretended to rely on-- appear on the trial?" "Because, I say, he was abroad and could not be found; or, the search after him miscaurried, from clumsy management and a lack of the rhino." "Hum!" said Mr. Beaufort--"one witness--one witness, observe, there _is_ only one!--does not alarm me much. It is not what a man deposes, it is what a jury believe, sir! Moreover, what has become of the young men? They have never been heard of for years. They are probably dead; if so, I am heir-at-law!" "I know where one of them is to be found at all events."