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Of lawyers, Roland, as a soldier, had ever a wholesome dread, and he shrank from the horror of disclosing this trickery on the part of his father even to them, whose lives were too probably but one long and tangled yarn of trickery and deceit; but again, he muttered that justice must be done.

His assumed coolness deserted him, his face became livid, and his eyes sparkled with a strange light, when he spoke to them of the papers he had found, and laid them before their legal eyes.

Then his proud pale face flushed scarlet, his dark eyebrows were knitted nearly into one, and his nether lip quivered with suppressed emotion and intense mortification, and in some degree the lawyers were also excited, but amazement was what they chiefly felt.

"What did Mr. Ruthven intend to do?"

"Justice," said he hoarsely.

"But to whom?"

"That is precisely what I have been asking of myself."

"This will revoking the former disposition, is fully forty years old; but it has never been recorded," said Mr. Hook.

"And none know of its existence, save ourselves," added Mr. Crook suggestively; "and it is a dreadful thing to lose so fine an estate—so noble a heritage—by one stroke of a pen!"