"Our family," repeated George, "of which some day I hope to be the head. For its honor, I say, you will not take these matters into court. I was in the room of Mrs. Jersey. I saw her dead!" "And you know who killed her?" "No. I can't say that for certain." George looked keenly at his grandfather. The old man appeared uneasy. Suddenly Brendon spoke. "I should like to know what you were doing in Mrs. Jersey's house on the night she was murdered?" Derrington dashed down his pen furiously and rose. "You go too far, sir; you go too far!" he roared. "Not any further than you intended to go. If you threaten me I have a right to protect myself." "In what way?" "By telling you that if I am in a perilous position, you are also." "Do you mean to say that I murdered the woman?" "By no means," said Brendon, quickly. "I should not think of doing such a thing. But I do say you were in that house after eleven." "I was not," panted the old nobleman, savagely, and glared at his grandson with bloodshot eyes. "You were," insisted Brendon; "there is no need to tell you how I got out of my bedroom unbeknown to Train, but I did. I came downstairs to see Mrs. Jersey at half-past eleven or thereabouts. I crept down the stairs and saw you standing in the light of the hall lamp. You had on a fur coat, and I recognized you by your unusual height. Also by the color of your coat. Some months before you wore that coat--it is a claret-colored one trimmed with sable--at a race-meeting. You were pointed out to me, and it was the first time I had set eyes on you. It was you in the hall." "Did you see my face?" asked Derrington. "No. But the coat and the height, and my knowledge that you were connected with Mrs. Jersey----" "I wasn't connected with the jade," flashed out Derrington. "She came to me years ago and said she could prove the marriage. I tried to get out of her the name of the church where it took place. She refused to give it, and said if I did not pension her off she would go to your guardian, Ireland, and get him to help her to prove that you were legitimate. I hated your father, sir, and as to your mother----" "No," cried Brendon, rising, "not a word against my mother." "Only this, that she was not well-born. The daughter of a music-master. Not the wife for my son." "She was his wife, however. Leave my mother's name out of it and go on, sir. You say that Mrs. Jersey could have proved the marriage." "Yes," growled Derrington, rather cowed by Brendon's manner. "I did not wish her to do so, for the reasons I have stated." "Very unworthy reasons," said George, coldly. "You know nothing about it, sir," flamed out the old man, slapping his hand on the table. "My family is as old as the Conquest." "As the future head of it I am glad to hear that."