'I can bear anything you can bear, and I won't be cheated out of my share in your worries. If you were obliged to have a tooth out, I would have one out too, for company.' 'I hope the dentist would be too conscientious to allow that.' 'Tell me your trouble, Hartfield,' she said, earnestly, leaning across the table, bringing her grave intelligent face near to him. They were quite alone, he and she. The servants had done their ministering. Behind them there was the empty dining-room, in front of them the sunlit panorama of lake and hill. There could not be a safer place for telling secrets. 'Tell me what it is that worries you,' Mary pleaded again. 'I will, dear. After all perfect trust is the best; nay, it is your due, for you are brave enough and true enough to be trusted with secrets that mean life and death. In a word, then, Mary, the cause of my trouble is that old man we saw the other night.' 'Steadman's uncle?' 'Do you really believe that he is Steadman's uncle?' 'My grandmother told me so,' answered Mary, reddening to the roots of her hair. To this girl, who was the soul of truth, there was deepest shame in the idea that her kinswoman, the woman whom of all the world she most owed reverence and honour, could be deemed capable of falsehood. 'Do you think my grandmother would tell me an untruth?' 'I do not believe that man is a poor dependent, an old servant's kinsman, sheltered and cared for in this house for charity's sake. Forgive me, Mary, if I doubt the word of one you love; but there are positions in life in which a man must judge for himself. Would Mr. Steadman's kinsman be lodged as that old man is lodged; would he talk as that old man talks; and last and greatest perplexity of all, would he possess a treasure of gold and jewels which must be worth many thousands?' 'But you cannot know for certain that those things are valuable; they may be rubbish that this poor old man has scraped together and hoarded for years, glass jewels bought at country fairs. Those rouleaux may contain lead or coppers.' 'I do not think so, Mary. The stones had all the brilliancy of valuable gems, and then there were others in the finest filagree settings--goldsmith's work which bore the stamp of an Eastern world. Take my word for it, that treasure came from India; and it must have been brought to England by Lord Maulevrier. It may have existed all these years without your grandmother's knowledge. That is quite possible; but it seems to me impossible that such wealth should be within the knowledge and the power of a pauper lunatic.' 'But if that unhappy old man is not a relation of Steadman's supported here by my grandmother's benevolence, who can he be, and why is he here?' asked Mary.