The lawyer looked upon Lord Penlyn, when he heard these words, as a Quixotic young idiot, but of course he did not say so. It occurred to him that, in all probability, his father had had more than one affair of this kind, and he wondered grimly what his romantic young client would say if he heard, by chance, of any more of them. But he did promise to go through all the papers in his possession relating to the late lord, and to see about this particular case. "Though I warn you," he said, "that I am not likely to find anything that can throw any light upon an affair of so long ago. And, as a lawyer, I must say that it is not well that such a dead and gone business should ever be dug up again." "I would dig it up," Lord Penlyn answered, "for the sake of justice." Then he went away, leaving the lawyer's mind wavering between contempt and admiration for him. "He must be a good young fellow at heart, though," Mr. Bell said to himself; "but the world will spoil him." Two nights afterwards Penlyn received a letter from him, saying that there was not the slightest trace in any of the Occleve papers in his possession of the persons about whom they had spoken. Moreover, Mr. Bell said he had gone through a great many of the accounts of the late Lord Penlyn, and of his uncle and predecessor, but in no case could he find any evidence of the Hon. Gervase having ever exceeded his income, or, when he succeeded to the property, of having drawn any large sum of money for an unknown purpose. "And," he concluded, "I should advise your lordship to banish the whole affair for ever from your mind. If your father really had the intimacy imagined by you with that lady, time has removed all signs of it; and, even though you might be willing to do so, it would be impossible for you now to obtain any information about it." CHAPTER IV.