“It has been a terrible visitation,” said Moy, when he had been reduced to replying to himself.

“It has,” said Julius.  “Perhaps you have heard that your tenant, Gadley, is dead?”

“Yes, I did hear it.  A very melancholy thing—­the whole family swept-away,” said Mr. Moy, his eye again betraying some uneasiness, which Julius increased by saying—­

“We thought it right that you should hear that he made a disclosure on his death-bed.”

“Indeed!” Mr. Moy sat erect—­the hard, keen, watchful lawyer.

“A disclosure that nearly affects the character of Mr. Archibald Douglas,” proceeded Julius.

“May I ask what this may be?”

“Mr. Gadley then informed me that he had been in the outer room, behind his desk, at the time when Mr. Douglas brought in the letter from my mother, containing the missing cheque, and that after Douglas was gone, he heard Mr. Vivian propose to those within to appropriate the amount to their own debts.”

“Pardon me, Mr. Charnock, this is a very serious charge to bring on the authority of a man in a raving fever.  Was any deposition taken before a magistrate?”

“No,” said Julius.  “Mr. Lipscombe was fetched, but he was unable to speak at the time.  However, on reviving, he spoke as is thus attested,” and he showed Herbert Bowater’s slip of paper.

“Mr. Charnock,” said Mr. Moy, “without the slightest imputation on the intentions of yourself or of young Mr. Bowater, I put it to yourself and Captain Charnock Poynsett, whether you could go before a jury with no fuller attestation than you have in your hand.  We know what Mr. Charnock and Mr. Bowater are.  To a jury they would simply appear—­pardon me—­a young clergyman, his still more youthful curate, and a sister of mercy, attaching importance to the words of a delirious man; and juries have become very incredulous in such cases.”

“We shall see that,” said Miles sharply.

“The more cautious,” added Mr. Moy, “when it is the raking up of a matter eleven years old, where the witnesses are mostly dead, and where the characters of two gentlemen, also deceased, would be implicated.  Believe me, sir, this firm—­I speak as its present head—­will be rejoiced to make any compensation to Mrs. Poynsett for what went astray while coming to their hands.  It has been our desire to do so from the very first, as letters of which I have copies testify; but our advances were met in a spirit of enmity, which may perhaps be laid aside now.”

“No so-called compensation can be accepted, but the clearing of Douglas’s character,” said Miles.

“It is a generous feeling,” said Mr. Moy, speaking apparently most dispassionately, though Julius saw his hands trembling below the table; “but even if the word of this delirious man were sufficient, have you reflected, Captain Charnock Poynsett, on the unequal benefit of justifying—­allowing that you could justify—­a young man who has been dead and forgotten these eleven years, and has no relation living nearer than yourself, at the expense of those also gone, but who have left relations who could ill bear to suffer from such a revelation?”