“You would not listen to me,” said Val.  “I told you I was sure I could not have failed to recognize Gordon, had he been the one who was down at Calne with the writ.”

“But you acknowledged that it might have been he, nevertheless; that his red hair might have been false; that you never had a distinct view of the man’s face; and that the only time you spoke to him was in the gloaming,” reiterated Thomas Carr.  “Well, as it turns out, we might have spared half our pains and anxiety, for Gorton was never any one but himself:  an innocent sheriff’s officer, as far as you are concerned, who had never, in his life set eyes on Val Elster until he went after him to Calne.”

“Didn’t I say so?” reiterated Val.  “Gordon would have known me too well to arrest Edward for me.”

“But you admitted the general likeness between you and your brother; and Gordon had not seen you for three years or more.”

“Yes; I admitted all you say, and perhaps was a little doubtful myself.  But I soon shook off the doubt, and of late years have been sure that Gordon was really dead.  It has been more than a conviction.  I always said there were no grounds for connecting the two together.”

“I had my grounds for doing it,” remarked the barrister.  “Gorton, it seems, has been in Australia ever since.  No wonder Green could not unearth him in London.  He’s back again on a visit, looking like a gentleman; and really I can’t discover that there was ever anything against him, except that he was down in the world.  Taylor met him the other day, and I had him brought to my chambers; and have told you the result.”

“You do not now feel any doubt that Gordon’s dead?”

“None at all.  Your friend, Gordon of Kircudbright, was the one who embarked, or ought to have embarked, on the Morning Star, homeward bound,” said Mr. Carr.  And he forthwith told Lord Hartledon what the man had said.

A silence ensued.  Lord Hartledon was in deep and evidently not pleasant thought; and the barrister stole a glance at him.

“Hartledon, take comfort.  I am as cautious by nature as I believe it is possible for any one to be; and I am sure the man is dead, and can never rise up to trouble you.”

“I have been sure of that for years,” replied Hartledon quietly.  “I have just said so.”

“Then what is disturbing you?”

“Oh, Carr, how can you ask it?” came the rejoinder.  “What is it lies on my mind day and night; is wearing me out before my time?  Discovery may be avoided; but when I look at the children—­at the boy especially—­it would have turned some men mad,” he more quietly added, passing his hand across his brow.  “As long as he lives, I cannot have rest from pain.  The sins of the fathers—­”

“Yes, yes,” interposed Mr. Carr, hastily.  “Still the case is light, compared with what we once dreaded.”

“Light for me, heavy for him.”

Mr. Carr remained with them until the Monday:  he then went back to London and work; and time glided on again.  An event occurred the following winter which shall be related at once; more especially as nothing of moment took place in those intervening months needing special record.