"A woman's ideas of honour, Lord Spunyarn, are peculiar. With them, as a rule, particularly with the best of them, sentiment often takes the place of what men call honour. You yourself have told me that this unhappy lady considered herself bound by an oath to Lucius's mother, accepting for the moment the theory that she herself is not his mother. If she would keep the secret for twenty years, Lord Spunyarn, if there was a secret, she may carry it with her to her grave, repenting the sudden confidence that you state she made to you. Even supposing that the power of speech should return to her, she may decline to confirm upon oath the statement made to you. The very fact of her suffering from paralysis may be used by Lucius Haggard and his advisers to set up a theory that she is of unsound mind; and a very natural theory, too, I take it," said the lawyer with a sigh. "Lucius Haggard," he continued, "a minor, under the influence which you and Mrs. Haggard would naturally exert upon him, may be a very different person to deal with from Lucius Haggard acting under professional advice, and only biassed by his own interests. I fear, should the matter ever come before the public, that very strong reflections indeed will be made upon you and Mrs. Haggard. _Beati possidentes._ Supposing that Lord Pit Town should elect to either ignore the matter altogether, or simply instruct me to seek for further evidence; in a very short time indeed, for his lordship is a very old man, Lucius Haggard will come into the title and estates as a matter of course; it will then be for George to attempt to prove his right. We must be careful, Lord Spunyarn, in attempting to set ourselves up as an amateur court of law, that we do not ruin the fortunes of a great house by leaving it absolutely without an heir; for suppose young George Haggard to die, and supposing for an instant that the story you have told me could ever be proved, that is what would happen. Why, the very title would cease to exist, and the estates would possibly revert to the Crown. Are you and I, Lord Spunyarn, justified in setting the match to a train which might extinguish an ancient peerage? If I speak to you as a man of the world, and give you my honest opinion, I do not hesitate to say that the best thing that can happen is, that these papers, whatever they contain, may never come to light." "You would not go as far as to suggest, Mr. Brookes, that should we discover the papers we are to destroy them?"