‘My lord,’ Mr. Fish wick answered, ’I desire first to impress upon your lordship and Sir George Soane that this claim was set on foot in good faith on the part of my client, and on my part; and, as far as I was concerned, with no desire to promote useless litigation.  That was the position up to Tuesday last, the day on which the lady was forcibly carried off.  I repeat, my lord, that on that day I had no more doubt of the justice of our claim than I have to-day that the sky is above us.  But on Wednesday I happened in a strange way—­at Bristol, my lord, whither but for that abduction I might never have gone in my life—­on a discovery, which by my client’s direction I am here to communicate.’

‘Do you mean, sir,’ the Earl said with sudden acumen, a note of keen surprise in his voice, ‘that you are here—­to abandon your claim?’

‘My client’s claim,’ the attorney answered with a sorrowful look.  ’Yes, my lord, I am.’

For an instant there was profound silence in the room; the astonishment was as deep as it was general.  At last, ’are the papers which were submitted to Mr. Dagge—­are they forgeries then?’ the Earl asked.

‘No, my lord; the papers are genuine,’ the attorney answered.  ’But my client, although the identification seemed to be complete, is not the person indicated in them.’  And succinctly, but with sufficient clearness, the attorney narrated his chance visit to the church, the discovery of the entry in the register, and the story told by the good woman at the ‘Golden Bee.’  ‘Your lordship will perceive,’ he concluded, ’that, apart from the exchange of the children, the claim was good.  The identification of the infant whom the porter presented to his wife with the child handed to him by his late master three weeks earlier seemed to be placed beyond doubt by every argument from probability.  But the child was not the child,’ he added with a sigh.  And, forgetting for the moment the presence in which he stood, Mr. Fishwick allowed the despondency he felt to appear in his face and figure.

There was a prolonged silence.  ‘Sir!’ Lord Chatham said at last—­Sir George Soane, with his eyes on the floor and a deep flush on his face, seemed to be thunderstruck by this sudden change of front—­’it appears to me that you are a very honest man!  Yet let me ask you.  Did it never occur to you to conceal the fact?’

‘Frankly, my lord, it did,’ the attorney answered gloomily, ’for a day.  Then I remembered a thing my father used to say to us, “Don’t put molasses in the punch!” And I was afraid.’

‘Don’t put molasses in the punch!’ his lordship ejaculated, with a lively expression of astonishment.  ‘Are you mad, sir?’

‘No, my lord and gentlemen,’ Mr. Fishwick answered hurriedly.’  But it means—­don’t help Providence, which can very well help itself.  The thing was too big for me, my lord, and my client too honest.  I thought, if it came out afterwards, the last state might be worse than the first.  And—­I could not see my way to keep it from her; and that is the truth,’ he added candidly.