'Not, I think, that I can recollect.' 'In none of your conversations upon the subject with--with members of your family?' continued the attorney with a grave significance. 'I say, Sir, I don't recollect,' said Lake, glaring for an instant in his face very savagely. 'And it seems to me, that sitting here, you fancy yourself examining some vagrant or poacher at Gylingden sessions. And pray, Sir, have you no evidence in the letters you speak of but the insertion of dates, and the posting them in inverse order, to lead you to that strong conclusion?' 'None, as supplied by the letters themselves,' answered Larkin, a little doggedly, 'and I venture to think that is rather strong.' 'Quite so, to a mind like yours,' said Lake, with a faint gleam of his unpleasant smile thrown upon the floor, 'but other men don't see it; and I hope, at all events, there's a likelihood that Mark Wylder will soon return and look after his own business--I'm quite tired of it, and of' (he was going to say _you_)--'of everything connected with it.' 'This delay is attended with more serious mischief. The vicar, his brother, had a promise of money from him, and is disappointed--in very great embarrassments; and, in fact, were it not for some temporary assistance, which I may mention--although I don't speak of such things--I afforded him myself, he must have been ruined.' 'It is very sad,' said Lake; 'but he ought not to have married without an income.' 'Very true, Captain Lake--there's no defending that--it was wrong, but the retribution is terrible,' and the righteous man shook his tall head. 'Don't you think he might take steps to relieve himself considerably?' 'I don't see it, Captain Lake,' said the attorney, sadly and drily. 'Well, you know best; but are not there resources?' 'I don't see, Captain Lake, what you point at.' 'I'll give him something for his reversion, if he chooses, and make him comfortable for his life.' The attorney, somehow, didn't seem to take kindly to this proposition. We know he had imagined for himself some little flirtation on this behalf, and cherished a secret _tendre_ for the same reversion. Perhaps he had other plans, too. At all events it flashed the same suspicion of Lake upon his mind again; and he said-- 'I don't know, Sir, that the Reverend Mr. Wylder would entertain anything in the nature of a sale of his reversion. I rather think the contrary. I don't think his friends would advise it.' 'And why not? It was never more than a contingency; and now they say Mark Wylder is married, and has children; they tell me he was seen at Ancona?' said Lake tranquilly. '_They_ tell you! who are _they?_' said the attorney, and his dove's eyes were gone again, and the rat's eyes unequivocally looking out of the small pink lids.