“I would not believe that woman on her oath,” said Mr. Dempster; “and I know her motive.  She wanted to get something out of your cousins, and for that purpose invented this confession.  That would never shake my belief in the spirits.  Look at the way in which those names were spelled out—­you were convinced of the truth of it at the time.”

“My dear sir,” said Francis, “I certainly heard and saw a great many things which I could not explain.  They seemed to echo my own thoughts marvellously correctly, but whenever I was at fault, they, too, were misinformed.  Elsie had been suspicious beforehand that I was not Henry Hogarth’s son.  Mrs. Peck’s confession was consistent and probable; she stuck to it as being true, to her dying day.  I went to see her on her death-bed, and she declared that, as she hoped for forgiveness, I was not her child or Mr. Hogarth’s; so that, though I never got any clue to my real parents—­for she did not know my name, and the advertisements which I put into American papers were never answered—­thirty-five years being a lapse of time in which such matters cannot be traced—­I am morally certain that I am not Jane’s cousin, and consequently that the spirit was wrong.  It might be mesmerism, or extraordinary quickness of sight; for though I tried to pass over the letters which spelled out the names, a very practised eye might observe an infinitesimal hesitation over the particular letter;—­but of one thing I am certain, that if Henry Hogarth had been there in the spirit, he would have been able to tell me both that he was not my father, and also whose son I really was, which information I wished to obtain.”

“But did not the spirit say you were to have happiness after a time,” said Mr. Dempster, triumphantly, “and have you not got it?”

“Certainly I have; and if it had any hand in bringing it about I am very grateful to it,” said Francis, looking at his wife with pride and pleasure; “but I think we owe our happiness very much to each other.  The will, which was as unjust and absurd a one as could have been made, indirectly did us service.  I am quite sure that but for the singular relations in which I was placed I never could have known Jane, and could not have loved her.”

“If Elsie had been left 20,000 pounds I never should have dared to have looked up to her,” said Brandon; “and what a loss that would have been to her, not speak of myself!  It is a hundred chances to one against two heiresses getting two such good husbands, and keeping all such capital friends as we do.”

“It is quite true,” said Jane; “my uncle’s will has resulted in more happiness than even he could have hoped for.”

“Though he certainly would not have contemplated with equanimity the passing of Cross Hall into the hands of Mrs. William Dalzell, whose trustees invested her fortune in it when it was sold by the benevolent societies to whom I relinquished the inheritance,” said Francis.  “Dalzell does not make so bad a landlord as we expected, particularly as he has not much in his power.  The proceeds of the sale are doing good to the sick and afflicted, while we are quite as comfortable without it.”