"You say, Mr. Dunning, that my brother bound you to secrecy," resumed Robert Melray after a pause. "Would it not have been better if you had looked upon his death as virtually absolving you from your promise, thereby enabling you to bring under my notice certain facts which I have learnt to-day for the first time?" "The point is one which I have debated with myself not once, but many times. The conclusion I finally came to was that, having regard to certain special features of the case, your brother's death did not absolve me from my promise. That a grievous crime had been committed could not be gainsaid; but if Mr. Melray chose to condone it that was no business of mine. In all probability, as he said, it was the one great sin of the young man's life, and who should say that it had not been bitterly repented of? Further, how was I to be sure in what light you would look at the affair? You might have chosen to prosecute the culprit, which would have made it a very difficult matter for me ever to forgive myself. In any case his character would have been blasted, and his career, almost of necessity, ruined. Still, I am not prepared to state positively what I might or might not have done, had it been your intention to carry on the business of Melray Brothers, which, almost as a matter of course, would have involved the retention of your kinsman in your service. Knowing, however, as I have from the first, that it is your resolve to get rid of the business as speedily as possible and retire into private life, in which case you and he would part, probably for ever, I deemed it best to keep the secret of his delinquencies locked up in my own breast, where, I can assure you, it had no lack of other secrets to keep it company." "I will not say but that you have perhaps acted for the best," remarked Mr. Melray. "Still---- But at this stage of the affair it would be futile to dwell on suppositions. What I have now to decide upon is the nature of the steps which it behoves me to take after what has been told me to-day. That, however," he added with a sigh, "is a problem which requires consideration." "May I ask whether Mr. Dyson is entitled to any bequest under his late cousin's will?" It was Winslade who put the question. "His name is down in the late Mr. Melray's will for a legacy of three thousand pounds," replied the lawyer. "The reason he has not been paid it before now is because the estate has not yet been finally wound up." Presently Mr. Melray and Winslade went their way, the former to the railway station, the latter to prosecute certain inquiries on his own account. The first thing he did was to retrace his steps to the office of Mr. Noyes. "I must ask you to excuse me for troubling you again," he said to the money-lender; "but what I am desirous of knowing is whether any communication passed between Dyson and yourself after his return from his holidays?"