Since the very startling communication which had been made to him, Lucius Haggard had thought of nothing else. To be suddenly told that one is a bastard is bad enough even for an ordinary mortal, but to a youth who has considered himself _porphyro-genitus_ to be informed that he is but of common clay after all, and, worse than that, base-born, is terrible indeed. Since he had heard the story, young Lucius had been unable to obtain even a sip of the doctor's recuperative elixir. He believed the tale--he couldn't doubt it--for he knew that the woman who had been a mother to him could not lie. So Lucius Haggard believed the story, and his only consolation was that the proofs were missing. Possession is nine points of the law he very well knew, and he thanked his stars that the _onus probandi_, fortunately for him, lay with those whom he already looked upon as "the other side." But he could not rest, for the mysterious contents of the box, whatever they had been, might be discovered at any moment, and, like Damocles, he trembled at the suspended sword. "You're not looking well, sir," said Mr. Capt, as he appeared with the dressing materials in the morning. "Won't you lie a little while longer?" said the valet. "I can bring up your breakfast, sir." "I'm all right, Capt. I've only had a bad night," and then the valet drew the curtains, and the young fellow looked once more upon the well-timbered landscape which till yesterday he had regarded as all his own. And then he gave a long sigh, which came from the very bottom of his heart. "The light seems to hurt your eyes, sir," said the valet, as he shut out what had now become a hateful picture.