No word was spoken by those around the couch; they sat silent, fearing to disturb her slumber. As Lucius Haggard gazed upon the sweet sleeping face, he was racked by torturing doubt. How would it all end? Would she recover her bodily health again? The mind was evidently still uninjured. _Would she ever speak again?_ That was the important question to Lucius Haggard. The papers gone and the mouth of this one witness closed, he felt himself comparatively safe; still in the eyes of the law and of the world his father's lawful heir. But should she speak again, she might communicate the secret of his shame. Without her evidence all that Lord Spunyarn might say could but be mere surmise, a simple _ex parte_ statement. One by one they left her sleeping, the old earl leaning heavily on the arm of Haggard's eldest son. And then they separated; the old lord to his slumbers and his dreams and the society of the faithful Wolff, the two young fellows to the park, to wander up and down the great avenue side by side, and talk with bated breath over their fresh misfortune, the affliction that had befallen their mother; while Lord Spunyarn returned to the examination of the mass of papers lying on the dead Reginald Haggard's table, and to wait with impatience the arrival of the family solicitor. "If there is a thing in this world that I hate," said old Mr. Brookes to his partner, as he sat in his cosy private room in Lincoln's Inn Fields that morning, "it's this modern system of telegrams; they're almost as bad as a doctor's night-bell. You have to go, whether you like it or not. Here's probably some simple matter of common law. Why on earth can't he write? Not a bit of it, he simply wires me, and I have to go," and he handed a telegram across the table: "Walls End Castle. "Please come down at once. Your presence urgently needed. "SPUNYARN." "Why can't they write?" That afternoon saw old Mr. Brookes at the Castle. He dined _tête-à-tête_ with Lord Spunyarn, and did full justice to the cook's efforts. Lawyers are always epicures, and Mr. Brookes condescended to praise the _suprême de volaille_ of the Walls End _chef_. After dinner they drew their chairs to the fire, and then Lord Spunyarn opened his business. "I'm glad you have come, Brookes; I'm very glad you've come." "Something very serious, I suppose; something so urgent, Lord Spunyarn, that you couldn't have written me a letter and got my advice by the next post," and Mr. Brookes chuckled. "Yes, Mr. Brookes, it was something so serious that I had to see you in person. I fear there is a screw loose in the succession." "Gad, sir, you don't mean that Hetton _was_ married after all?"