"No, it's not that. Since my poor friend Haggard's death, Mr. Brookes, I have been placed in a very difficult position. On his death-bed Haggard desired me to place a box containing letters and certain reminiscences of a bygone intrigue in his wife's hands. There is nothing very extraordinary in that you will say; the man was sorry for his youthful error, and sought forgiveness. Quite so, but that was not the end of the matter." Spunyarn described to the old lawyer the contents of the box, the miniature, the mask, the earrings, and the packet of letters. "Mr. Brookes," he continued, "as my friend's executor it was perhaps my duty to have gone through those letters, but they were the love-letters of a dead woman to my own dead friend, and I myself had at one time, long long ago, been seriously attached to the lady. I hadn't the heart to go through those letters. I see now, that I neglected or avoided what was a very painful duty. I as my friend's executor should have cared for those letters, verified them, and put them in a place of safety. My only excuse is that my dying friend's words to me were, 'Hand the red morocco box in my safe to my wife, the contents are important; remember my affair at Rome and you will understand them; Georgie must do as she pleases in the matter.' And then he died. I take it, Mr. Brookes, that it was my duty to carry out my dying friend's injunctions. I did carry out those injunctions to the letter, and then I became aware of an astounding thing. Young Lucius Haggard is not the heir to the Pit Town title, for he is illegitimate; nay, more than that, he is not Mrs. Haggard's son at all." The lawyer sprang from his chair. "Do you mean to assert, Lord Spunyarn, that he was substituted by the supposed parents? On the face of it, Lord Spunyarn, it's an improbable story, almost an impossible story." "Let me explain, Mr. Brookes. Lucius Haggard is really the son of Mrs. Haggard's dearest friend. When, in a moment of desperate fear and agitation, in her love for her friend she consented to cover that friend's terrible position--she was an inexperienced girl, Mr. Brookes--by personating the child's mother, she had not the slightest idea of the terrible complications that would ensue, and that the child's father was her own husband; that latter fact she never knew until my poor friend, suddenly stricken down, with his dying breath hinted at the terrible secret, and asked for her forgiveness." The lawyer moved uneasily in his chair, but did not attempt to interrupt Lord Spunyarn's explanation.