“You!  No; certainly not.  I only deal with principals.”

“Miss Alice Melville empowers me to act for her in this matter, and this letter from her to me should satisfy you of that.  It will not do for a girl to treat personally with a woman who compromises her by her company.”

“Oh, is that it?” said Mrs. Peck, who disliked the exchange of a simple young girl for a man of the world in the bargain she wished to make.  “Well, if I must deal with you, what do you offer?”

“If you can give the inheritance of Cross Hall to Jane and Alice Melville, a thousand pounds,” said Brandon.

“Say two thousand,” said Mrs. Peck; “I will not take less than that.  Are you a sweetheart of that girl’s—­or of her sister’s?  If you are, you can easily see that Cross Hall is worth far more than that.”

“I do not think you can give information that will be worth the money I offer,” said Brandon.  “Even supposing you were married before your irregular marriage with Mr. Hogarth, you will have difficulty in proving that marriage; and after so many years spent in New South Wales and Victoria under another name, it will be almost impossible to prove your identity.”

“I can prove that,” said Mrs. Peck, taking out of her black bag several letters of old date, generally with remittances, signed “H.  Hogarth.”  There had been an annuity paid regularly after she had gone to Australia; but the last payment had been of a large sum 1,500 pounds which she had accepted in lieu of all future annual remittances, and that had been sent more than thirteen years before.

“I was a fool and a idiot to take the money, for it went as fast as my money always did; but Peck wanted to start in the public line, and persuaded me to ask for that sum, and then in a year and a half it was all gone, and I had no annuity to fall back on,” said Mrs. Peck.

“Were you married to Peck or to Mrs. Phillips’s father?” asked Brandon.

“No, not exactly married.  I kept out of bigamy.  I always kept that hold on Cross Hall; I would not marry any one right out, you know.”

“He might have had a divorce from you,” said Brandon.

“If he had known, perhaps he might; but nobody made it none of their business to tell him, and I said nothing about it.”

“It is rather difficult to tell when you are speaking the truth, and when you are not,” said Brandon; “but I believe that you really are Elizabeth Ormistown, and I believe also that Francis Hogarth is not the son of old Cross Hall, as you call him; but I fear you cannot prove it, and without that the information is of no use to us, and worth no money.”

“If I can prove it, how much is it worth?”

“How much have you had already on the strength of it?  You are first handsomely paid for the lie, and now you want to be bribed into telling the truth.  I myself think 1,000 pounds far too much, for if the case were taken to court, there would be very heavy law expenses before possession could be obtained.  I offer, on Miss Melville’s behalf, a thousand whenever they get the property.”