‘Denial to me is vain,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘I shall show you that I know more than that.’

‘You — you — can’t prove anything against me,’ stammered Monks. ‘I defy you to do it!’

‘We shall see,’ returned the old gentleman with a searching glance. ‘I lost the boy, and no efforts of mine could recover him. Your mother being dead, I knew that you alone could solve the mystery if anybody could, and as when I had last heard of you you were on your own estate in the West Indies — whither, as you well know, you retired upon your mother’s death to escape the consequences of vicious courses here — I made the voyage. You had left it, months before, and were supposed to be in London, but no one