a certain lady.”  Still there was no answer; and thereupon Mr. Gosford, declaring that the whole interview “was idle,” left the place.  That packet, unfortunately, was no longer in existence.  Some years after Roger Tichborne’s death appeared to be beyond all doubt, Mr. Gosford had simply burnt it, regarding it as a document which it would be useless, and which he had no right, to keep, and yet one which, on the other hand, he should not be justified in giving up to any living person.  The fact of its being burnt he had for obvious reasons concealed, but being now asked on the subject he was compelled to state the circumstance.  It is remarkable that, on the very morrow of that disclosure, the Claimant for the first time made a statement to his supporter, Mr. Bulpett, as to the packet.  It may be supposed that Mr. Bulpett and the Claimant’s friends generally were inclined to draw unfavourable inferences from his apparent ignorance of the contents of the packet.  He now, however, declared that not ignorance of its contents, but delicacy and forbearance towards Mrs. Radcliffe, had alone prevented his answering Mr. Gosford’s test question.  Mr. Gosford, he said, was right.  It did relate to “an arrangement to be carried out at Tichborne,” but an arrangement of a very painful kind.  Then it was that he wrote out the terrible charge against the lady whom Roger had loved so well—­confessing, it is true, his own diabolical wickedness, but at the same time casting upon her the cruellest of imputations.  This, he said, was what he had sealed up and given to Mr. Gosford.  Mr. Bulpett, the banker, put his initials solemnly to the document, and within a few months all Hampshire had whispered the wicked story.  It is to be observed that, during all this time, no word had been spoken by the Claimant of his having confided to Mr. Gosford a vow to build a church.  Four years later, when under examination, he was asked whether he had ever left any other private document with Mr. Gosford, and he answered, “I think not.”  Then it was that counsel produced the copy of the vow to build the church in Roger Tichborne’s hand, which he had fortunately given to his cousin on the sorrowful day of their last parting; and finally there was found and read aloud the letter of Roger Tichborne to Mr. Gosford, dated January 17th, 1852, in which occur the precious words, “I have written out my will, and left it with Mr. Slaughter; the only thing which I have left out is about the church, which I will only build under the circumstances which I have left with you in writing.”  Happily these facts render it unnecessary to enter upon the question, Whether this story was not wholly irreconcilable, both with itself and with the ascertained dates and facts in Roger Tichborne’s career?