"Feels like that. Any one who says we're not brothers is simply a fool. Besides, why on earth should our grandfather bring us up as brothers if we aren't? He's no fool, and he's not the man to play at things all these years. I wonder if Mr. Eager knows." "I shouldn't think so. We were ten when he came." "Well, we'll see him first, at all events, and get his advice." And on that understanding they parted, to meet at Euston the following morning. Jack would have had Jim stop for a while to see round Chatham and make the acquaintance of some of his friends, but he begged off. "I can think of nothing but this thing at present. It's turned me upside down. I hope nothing will turn up to separate us, Jack." "We won't let it, Jim boy. That's in our hands at all events, and we'll see to it." CHAPTER XXXV EXPLANATIONS It was after ten o'clock the next night when they drove into Wyvveloe and knocked on Mrs. Jex's door. Mrs. Jex had gone to bed and so had Gracie. Eager himself answered their knock, and jumped with surprise at sight of them. "Why--Jack--Jim! What on earth----" "We'll tell you if you'll let us in," said Jack. "Now what mischief have you been getting into?" said Eager, as they sat down before the fire, and he knocked the wood into life. "It's not us this time. We've come to ask you something, Mr. Eager; and if you can't tell us we are going on to see Sir Denzil." And Charles Eager knew, without more telling, that the boys had somehow fallen on the mystery of their birth. "Go on," he nodded. "You know what we want to know?" "I think so; but if you'll tell me I shall be sure." And Jack, as the better speaker, laid the matter before him, and both eyed him anxiously the while. "I am glad you came to me first," he said. "I can probably tell you all you wish to know; and you must take it from me, boys, that if it was never told to you before, it was for good reason. Better still if it had never needed to be told at all. Best of all if there had been nothing to tell. The trouble is none of our making. All we can do is to face it like men, and that, I know, you will do." And he told them, as clearly and briefly as possible, all that he had learned concerning their births. "To sum it all up," he said in conclusion, "you are sons of the same father, and so are half-brothers. But which of you is the son of Lady Susan and which the son of Mrs. Lee's daughter, no man on earth knows. And again--whether your father was really married to Mrs. Lee's daughter I doubt if any one but himself knows. And so you see the tangle the whole matter is in, and you can understand why it was kept from you. We could only present you with a puzzle of which we did not know the solution. It could only have upset your lives as it has done now. We have gained twenty years by keeping silence." "Old Mrs. Lee knows which of us is which, I suppose," said Jack. And Jim jumped at the thought.