“Well, well, you know your own affairs best,” said Mr. Pimpernel. And so there was no more said about it; but Arthur’s brain was set to work as it had never yet been. What if there might be evidence after all--something the old Squire had made up his mind not to use? Arden was worth a great deal of exertion, even a little treachery; and, of course, if Edgar was not a real Arden, it would be a duty to the race to cast him out--a duty to the race, and a duty to himself. Duty to one’s self is a very prevailing principle; there is not much about it in the canons of Christianity, but there is a great deal about it in the practical laws which govern the world. Arthur was vaguely excited by this unexpected proposal. He was not lawyer enough to know much of the possibilities or impossibilities of the matter. But it was worth thinking about, worth inquiring into, surely, if anything ever was. CHAPTER VIII. It was with this idea strong in his mind that Arthur marked out for himself a certain scheme of operations during his stay at the Red House. He had still ten days to remain there, and time, it must be allowed, hung sometimes heavy on his hands. To play croquet with devotion for several hours every day requires a mind free from agitation and innocent of scheming--or, at least, not burdened with schemes which are very important--or any warm personal anxiety in the bigger game of life. Alice Pimpernel was good for two hours in the morning, with her little sisters, when they had done their lessons; and Arden felt that it was a very pretty group on the first day of his visit, when he looked up from his newspaper, and let his eyes stray over the well-kept lawn, with its background of trees, and all the airy figures in their light dresses that were standing about. But, then, Alice was good also for four hours in the afternoon, when there was nothing better going on--namely, from half-past two, when luncheon was just over, till half-past six; when it was time to dress for dinner. Young Denbigh, by right of his youth, was equal to this long continued enjoyment; but Arthur was not equal to it. And, as at that moment there were no other visitors at the Red House, time was hard to kill. He felt that if he had been a little younger he would have been driven, in self defence, to make love to somebody--Alice or her mother, it did not much matter which--but it was too great a bore, with all his anxieties on his mind, and with the amount of real feeling he had in respect to Clare. Accordingly, it was rather a godsend to him when Mr. Pimpernel threw this suggestion into his mind. He did not take it up with any active feeling of enmity to Edgar, nor even with any great hope of success. If it were as he thought, the Squire had either been uncertain to the last of his wife’s guilt, or he had been sufficiently infatuated to accept the consequences, finally and irredeemably--in which latter case, no doubt, he must have destroyed any