“Well, really, my lord,” replied Dunroe, “as it appears that the lecture is all you have to bestow upon me, I am quite willing that you should disinherit me of that also.  I waive every claim to it.  But so do I not to my just rights.  We shall see what a court of law can do.”

“You may try it, and entail disgrace upon yourself and your sister.  As for my child, it will break her heart.  My God! my child! my child!”

“Not, certainly, my lord, if we should succeed.”

“All hopes of success are out of the question,” replied his father.

“No such thing, my lord.  Your mind, as I said, is enfeebled by illness, and you yield too easily.  Such conduct on your part is really ridiculous.  We shall have a tug for it, I am determined.”

“Here,” said his father, “cast your eye over these papers, and they will enable you to understand, not merely the grounds upon which our opponents proceed, but the utter hopelessness of contesting the matter with them.”

Dunroe took the papers, but before looking at them replied, with a great deal of confidence, “you are quite mistaken there, my lord, with every respect.  They are not in a position to prove their allegations.”

“How so?” said his father.

“For the best reason in the world, my lord.  We have had their proofs in our possession and destroyed them.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“The fellow, M’Bride, of whom I think your lordship knows something, had their documents in his possession.”

“I am aware of that.”

“Well, my lord, while in a drunken fit, he either lost them, or some one took them out of his pocket.  I certainly would have purchased them from him.”

“Did you know how he came by them?” asked his father, with a look of reproof and anger.

“That, my lord, was no consideration of mine.  As it was, however, he certainty lost them; but we learned from him that Birney, the attorney, was about to proceed to France, in order to get fresh attested copies; upon which, as he knew the party there in whose hands the registry was kept, Norton and he started a day or two in advance of him, and on arriving there, they found, much to our advantage, that the register was dead.  M’Bride, however, who is an adroit fellow, and was well acquainted with his house and premises, contrived to secure the book in which the original record was made—­which book he has burned—­so that, in point of fact, they have no legal proofs on which to proceed.”

“Dishonorable man!” said his father, rising up in a state of the deepest emotion.  “You have made me weary of life; you have broken my heart:  and so you would stoop to defend yourself, or your lights, by a crime—­by a crime so low, fraudulent, and base—­that here, in the privacy of my own chamber, and standing face to face with you, I am absolutely ashamed to call you my son.  Know, sir, that if it were a dukedom, I should scorn to contest it, or to retain it, at the expense of my honor.”