"That's the word, conspiring, and I don't care who hears me. The jury on the inquest are sworn, like any other jury, and if it can be proved that, before the inquiry is opened, before any evidence is taken, there is on the part of one of them an arrangement with an outside party to return a certain verdict, that I should imagine is a conspiracy, and the law can be made to touch them." Uncle Rob shook his head doubtfully. "Well, anyway, there's a free press, and the making of such a conspiracy public would influence public opinion, and there would be no baiting of the wrong bull, even though he was in the ring. 'Hold hard a bit,' the public would cry, 'let us see fair play!'" "Not badly put, Dick," said Uncle Rob, and Florence pressed the young man's hand. "As things stand," he went on with enthusiasm, "it looks very much like a match between me and Dr. Vinsen--or, at all events, that's the way I view it, and if he were standing before me this present moment I'd fling my glove in his face, and be glad if it hurt him. How does that juryman fellow become so familiar with our private affairs? It's through him you're compelled to tell all about Florence's marriage. It's through him that it's been drummed into the public ear that Reginald is the only man who benefits by his father's death. Bull-baiting is nothing to the way some of us have been treated in court; and the prime mover of it all is Dr. Vinsen, who stands behind and pulls the strings." "But what has Dr. Vinsen to gain by it?" asked Uncle Rob, bewildered, and yet half convinced by Dick's intense earnestness.