Mrs. Peck brightened up a little at this offer, though she could scarcely imagine any valid reason for it.  “I think I could prove that; I really think I could prove that.  There was my cousin that we lived with in Edinburgh, Violet Strachan, one of the witnesses to my marriage.  She saw a great deal of my child, for, till we went to London, we lived in her house, and Frank was born there.  She knew that he took convulsion fits very badly, and that he had a brown mole on his shoulder that this boy cannot have.  I don’t know of any other birth-mark,” said Mrs. Peck.

“And this woman lived in Edinburgh.  Do you think she is alive?  Was she older or younger than you?”

“Oh, older by ten years,” said Mrs. Peck, feeling the ground give way under her.  “I hope she is not dead—­she lived in 57, New Street, leading down to the Canongate, up three pair of stairs; her husband was a saddler, and she kept lodgers.  His name was George.  He would recollect something about Frank.  Peck could swear that I have told him over and over again that my boy was dead, and that the boy Cross Hall brought up was none of mine.”

“But Peck’s word is worth nothing,” said Brandon.

“Betsy could say something of the kind.  I am sure she must have heard us hint at it often, but she is not sharp.  Perhaps she did not notice.”

“Does no one else know anything about it?” said Brandon, in despair.

“No one;—­but surely I ain’t got no cause to take such blame on myself, if it was not true,” said Mrs. Peck, sulkily.

“You unfortunately had a motive—­two strong motives.  A deathbed confession, for no hope of gain or revenge, might have carried weight—­but this carries none.  The only accomplice of your crime is dead.  The mother from whom you stole the child is probably dead also, and at any rate gone out of England—­you do not even know her name, or that of the ship she sailed in.  The witness who you think could prove the non-identity of the present possessor of Cross Hall is most likely dead also, and if alive must be an old woman who has probably forgotten the trifling circumstance of the existence of a mole on a child after thirty-five years and more—­and people outgrow these peculiarities.  You have not the ghost of a case for the Melvilles.  Hogarth might give you something for the chance that you are speaking truth, to get rid of your claims for ever, and the satisfaction of feeling that you are nothing to him.”

“That’s what I ought to have done.  Peck always said I was too hasty; and his words has come true,” said Mrs. Peck.  “I might have got something handsome out of the heir—­and but for your interference I might have got something out of the Melvilles.”

“Nonsense!” said Brandon; “they have nothing to give, unless you gave the property to them; and you cannot do that.”

“I’m glad you’re to get nothing with your sweetheart,” said Mrs. Peck, maliciously.  “My daughter’s maid, I suppose, is the person Half of Cross Hall would have been a good fortune, but you’re not to get it.”