“There are rights, and rights! There are demands, too, that it is often better to conciliate than to defy--even though defiance would be successful.” “And how is it that I never heard of this before?” burst he out, indignantly. “Has a man the right to treat his son in this fashion? to bring him up in the unbroken security of succeeding to an inheritance that the law may decide he has no title to?” “I think that is natural enough. Your father evidently did not recognize this man's right, and felt there was no need to impart the matter to his family.” “But why should my father be the judge in his own cause?” L'Estrange smiled faintly: the line in the Colonel's letter, in which he spoke of his son's sensitiveness, occurred to him at once. “I see how you treat my question,” said Augustus. “It reminds you of the character my father gave me. What do you say then to that passage about the registry? Why, if we be clean-handed in this business, do we want to make short work of all records?” “I simply say I can make nothing of it.” “Is it possible, think you, that Marion knows this story?” “I think it by no means unlikely.” “It would account for much that has often puzzled me,” said Augustus, musing as he spoke. “A certain self-assertion that she has, and a habit, too, of separating her own interests from those of the rest of us, as though speculating on a time when she should walk alone. Have you remarked that?” “_I_ I,” said L'Estrange, smiling, “remarked nothing! there is not a less observant fellow breathing.” “If it were not for those words about the parish registry, George,” said the other, in a grave tone, “I 'd carry a light heart about all this; I'd take my father's version of this fellow, whoever he is, and believe him to be an impostor; but I don't like the notion of foul play, and it does mean foul play.” L'Estrange was silent, and for some minutes neither spoke. “When my father,” said Augustus--and there was a tone of bitterness now in his voice--“when my father drew that comparison between himself and his sons, he may have been flattering his superior intellect at the expense of some other quality.” Another and a longer pause succeeded. At last L'Estrange spoke:-- “I have been running over in my head all that could bear upon this matter, and now I remember a couple of weeks ago that Longworth, who came with a French friend of his to pass an evening at the cottage, led me to talk of the parish church and its history; he asked me if it had not been burnt by the rebels in '98, and seemed surprised when I said it was only the vestry-room and the books that had been destroyed. 'Was not that strange?' asked he; 'did the insurgents usually interest themselves about parochial records?' I felt a something like a sneer in the question, and made him no reply.” “And who was the Frenchman?”