'I have heard a dozen stories; and if only a quarter of them are true my grandfather was a scoundrel. It seems that he was immensely popular for the first year or so of his government, gave more splendid entertainments than had been given at Madras for half a century before his time, lavished his wealth upon his favourites. Then arose a rumour that the governor was insolvent and harassed by his creditors, and then a new source of wealth seemed to be at his command; he was more reckless, more princely than ever; and then, little by little, there arose the suspicion that he was trafficking in English interests, selling his influence to petty princes, winking at those mysterious crimes by which rightful heirs are pushed aside to make room for usurpers. Lastly it became notorious that he was the slave of a wicked woman, false wife, suspected murderess, whose husband, a native prince, disappeared from the scene just when his existence became perilous to the governor's reputation. According to one version of the story, the scandal of this Rajah's mysterious disappearance, followed not long after by the Ranee's equally mysterious death, was the immediate cause of my grandfather's recall. How much, or how little of this story--or other dark stories of the same kind--is true, whether my grandfather was a consummate scoundrel, or the victim of a baseless slander,--whether he left India a rich man or a poor man, is known to no mortal except Lady Maulevrier, and compared with her the Theban Sphinx was a communicative individual.' 'Let the dead bury their dead,' said Hammond. 'Neither you nor your sisters can be the worse for this ancient slander. No doubt every part of the story has been distorted and exaggerated in the telling; and a great deal of it may be pure invention, evolved from the inner consciousness of the slanderer. God forbid that any whisper of scandal should ever reach Lady Lesbia's ears.' He ignored poor Mary. It was to him as if there were no such person. Her feeble light was extinguished by the radiance of her sister's beauty; her very individuality was annihilated. 'As for you, dear old fellow,' he said, with warm affection, 'no one will ever think the worse of you on account of your grandfather's peccadilloes.' 'Yes, they will. Hereditary genius is one of our modern crazes. When a man's grandfather was a rogue, there must be a taint in his blood. People don't believe in spontaneous generation, moral or physical, now-a-days. Typhoid breeds typhoid, and typhus breeds typhus, just as dog breeds dog; and who will believe that a cheat and a liar can be the father of honest men?' 'In that case, knowing what kind of man the grandson is, I will never believe that the grandfather was a rogue,' said Hammond, heartily. Maulevrier put out his hand without a word, and it was warmly grasped by his friend.