“Oh, this is terrible!” she cried helplessly; then, with sudden, strange defiance: “You cannot prove what you have declared!” “I _can_ prove it--to Francis Murray’s face, if he were alive. Yet I do not say I can prove the murder. It is circumstantial evidence, you see, the same as it was against your mother. But both of them might be perfectly innocent. Suppose you employ a detective to ferret out the affair--only the publicity would break the loving heart of Francis Murray’s mother.” “True, true, I will do nothing yet. I will wait--a little while--until I can make sure of something,” she declared, and Percy Seabright eagerly applauded her resolution. CHAPTER XV. THE LAWYER’S STORY. Italy had made up her mind by the next day, and a brief note to Lawyer Gardner brought him quickly to her side. He had not heard of his former client for years, and it was a great surprise to him to receive a letter from her daughter stating that she had lost her mother, and, having come to Boston on a matter of business, desired his advice. He was a fine-looking man, between fifty and sixty, with a kind, shrewd, yet benevolent face that drew the girl’s heart to him at once. As for him, he looked at her in pity and admiration, she was so beautiful, yet her lot was so sad. “You were my mother’s friend and lawyer,” she said; “I want you to be both to me.” She held out her little hand to him, and he pressed it warmly. “I will do all that I can for you in both qualities,” he replied, and then she poured out to him her sorrows, the story of her mother’s tortured life, and her own vow to bring the real murderer to justice and clear her memory from all stain. “I will confess to you that I at first suspected the man who succeeded my father in the Vale fortune, but he was lost at sea some time since, and is believed to be dead,” she added. “You were wrong, Miss Vale. Francis Murray was one of nature’s noblemen, incapable of an ignoble action. I knew him well, and esteemed him highly as a gentleman, and admired his talents as an author.” “But, Mr. Gardner, appearances are often deceitful. Remember _Arthur Dimmesdale_, in the ‘Scarlet Letter,’” she said. Mr. Gardner answered decisively: “Francis Murray was no criminal. Put that idea out of your head at once and forever, Miss Vale.” His words were like sweet music to her ears. She decided not to tell him yet of what Percy Seabright had asserted. “I want you to help me trace the murderer,” she said pleadingly. “Miss Vale, I cannot take the case,” he replied, so abruptly that she flushed with anger, and retorted: “I will go to another lawyer.” “You must not--you shall not!” he cried out agitatedly, and caught her hand. “In mercy let this matter rest. You can do nothing but ill by reviving the case.” “What _can_ you mean?” she cried, startled by the similarity of his words with the advice of Francis Murray. He looked at her doubtfully a moment, then said resolutely: