“This is very possibly true, Mr. Hogarth,” said he, at last; “indeed very probably true.  I think with you that this woman, Elizabeth Ormistown, and her mother, were capable of doing anything that would bring them in money; but the secret has been kept too long—­much too long.  They did their work skilfully, without accomplices, and without leaving any traces of their proceedings.  This confession is not worth the paper it is written on in a court of law, and you have failed in all your efforts to get corroborative evidence.  There is no use in inquiring about Violet Strachan; she is dead three years ago.  I paid her, on Hogarth’s account, a small weekly sum, that she used to come to my office for to keep her from destitution, but that payment is at an end.  The other witness could only prove the irregular marriage, which there is no doubt about, as Henry Hogarth owns to it in his will.  The only evidence that would be worth anything is that of your real mother, and there is no saying if she is not dead too.  I think the chances are that she is,” said Mr. MacFarlane, turning up the annuity tables for the chances of life at the supposed age of thirty-two, which Mrs. Peck had given as the probable age of her neighbour in the lodging-house, after a period of thirty-four years.  “If alive, there is no getting at her, and after all—­Cui Bono?”

“I am attached—­very deeply attached—­to my supposed cousin, Jane Melville.  I want to be free to marry her.  I am convinced that she is not my cousin, and you know the will said that it was on condition of not marrying or assisting either of my cousins that I was to hold the property.  If I have convinced you of the feasibility of the case—­that I am not related in the slightest degree to the Misses Melville—­would not the benevolent societies to which Mr. Hogarth left his property, in case of my disobeying his injunctions, see it also?”

“One man, or one society of men, might be convinced,” said Mr. MacFarlane, “and would make a compromise with you on very easy terms; but I doubt if five distinct corporations would do so.”

“There is no one who has any right to object, except these societies,” said Francis, “or any object in doing so.”

“Those clauses forbidding marriage as a condition of inheriting property, or of receiving yearly incomes, are always michievious,” said Sinclair; “they are contrary to public morals.”

“Henry Hogarth,” said Mr. MacFarlane, “who was a clever man, and in some respects a wise man, did the foolishest things in important matters that ever I heard of.  First, his marriage with that girl.  I saw her once at the house he lodged in; and a glaikit lassie I thought her.  Next, the education of his nieces, which was absolutely nonsensical; and then putting such a clause into his will, as if he meant that you should take a fancy to each other—­for prohibitions of that kind just put mischief into young folks’ heads.”