“I thought you would say so, but it is your first right.”

“Perhaps,” said Jock.  “But he is superior in his own line to me.  He gave himself up to this line of his own free will, not like me, as a resource.  And moreover, if it should bring any personal benefit, as an accident, it would be more important to him than to me.  And these other conditions he fulfils to the letter.  Mother, let me fetch him.”

She kissed his brow by way of answer, and a call brought John into the room.  The explanation was made, and John said, “If you think it right, Aunt Caroline.  No one can quite fulfil the conditions, but two may be better than one.”

“Then I will leave you to read it together,” she said, after pointing them to the solemn words in the first page.  “Oh, you cannot think how glad I am to give up my trust.”

She went upstairs to the drawing-room, and about half an hour had passed in this way, when Jock came to the door, and said, “Mother, would you please to come down.”

It was a strange, grave voice in which he spoke, and when she reached the room, they set Allen’s most luxurious chair for her, but she stood trembling, reading in their faces that there was something they hesitated to tell her.  They looked at one another as if to ask which should do it, and a certain indignation and alarm seized on her.  “You believe in it!” she cried, as if she suspected them of disloyalty.

“Most entirely!” they both exclaimed.

“It is a great discovery,” added Jock, “but-—”

“But,” said John, as he hesitated, “it has been worked out within the last two years.”

“Not Dr. Hermann!” she cried.

“No, indeed!” said Jock.  “Why?”

“Because poor Janet overheard our conversation, and obtained a sight of the book.  It was her ambition.  I believe it was fatal to her.  She may have caught up enough of the outline to betray it.  Jock, you remember that scene at Belforest?”

“I do,” said Jock; “but this is not that scoundrel.  It is Ruthven, who has worked it out in a full and regular way.  It is making a considerable sensation though it has scarcely yet come into use as a mode of treatment.  Mother, do not be disappointed.  It will be the blessing that my father intended, all the sooner for not being in the hands of two lads like us, whom all the bigwigs would scout!”

“And what I never thought of before,” said John.  “You know we are so often asked whether we belong to Joseph Brownlow, that one forgets to mention it every time; but that day, when Dr. Medlicott took me to the Westminster hospital, we fell in with Dr. Ruthven, and after the usual disappointment on finding I was only the nephew and not the son, he said, ’Joseph Brownlow would have been a great man if he had lived.  I owe a great deal to a hint he once gave me?’”

“He ought to see these notes,” said Jock.  “It strikes me that there is a clue here to that difficulty he mentions in that published paper of his.”