awoke he was fresher and clearer than he had been before.

The notary, attended by his clerk, was shown into the sick man's room. His bureaucratic air, natural to all French officials, tempered the cosy and confidential manner due to testamentary operations.

"Monsieur could not have been more fortunate in a notary," he said; "if an autograph is not prepared, he can dictate; and if it deranges him to employ the French language, let him use his own. In it I declare myself to be proficient, and can draw the testament in either language."

"It is not a testament, it is a deposition," said M'Killop; and the notary's countenance became definitely bureaucratic at once. M'Killop then made him read over the statement which he had written to Mr Tainsh, signed it, and had it duly attested by the Frenchman. He then instructed him to make a copy of it, which was also read over, signed, and duly attested. The notary insisted on making a précis of the statement, and, indeed, would probably have made a précis of the copy also, if the doctor had not arrived and

summarily ejected him. The exertion and excitement had nearly prostrated the patient already, he said, and he found his situation again critical.

Three days after this Mr Tainsh arrived.

265

CHAPTER XL.

We must now pass over a week or two, and rejoin Bertrand Cameron at Gosport. In the interval he had received two communications on the subject of the Aberlorna succession - one from Sir Roland, and the other that which M'Killop had written on the night he was taken ill at Pau.

To have a main object in common-viz., to inform Bertrand of the existence of the second will-two letters could not well have been more unlike, or have handled the subject in a more different manner. Sir Roland's was written as to a non-acquaintance, and contained no allusion to any other subject of mutual interest, not even to his own marriage.

"He had seen," he said, "a will purporting to be the last will of his father, and altering the disposition of the Aberlorna property so as to make

Bertrand the actual proprietor since his birth. The will was in the possession of Mr M'Killop, and had come to be so under circumstances connected with the crime for which that person had suffered punishment. His prima facie view of the matter had been, that it was probably a fabrication for purposes of extortion; but he had seen the instrument, and was bound, taking a dispassionate view of the case, to admit that it bore a certain air of genuineness. Probably it was a case where a compromise might satisfy the interests of both parties, and he had instructed his agent, Mr Tainsh, in Scotland, to draw up a suitable proposal, with that view. He understood that the documents would be sent to that gentleman by Mr M Killop, for whom he had also acted as agent; and he hoped that an arrangement might be come to, which would save the tedious, expensive, and often unsatisfactory expedient of litigation."

Mr McKillop's version of the matter was of a very different complexion. Mr McKillop told the truth, and the whole truth, as we know it, not excepting the part which Sir Roland had played in the attempted composition, nor this final stratagem by which he had attempted to

silence M'Killop by marrying his daughter. He went on to say that he had forwarded a full statement of the case, with the will, and every information he could give to facilitate the collection of corroborative evidence, to Mr Tainsh. That gentleman would take all necessary legal steps to replace Bertrand in his rights. He expressed his own deep contrition; explained, at length, how he had been led on, by one circumstance and another, to postpone the act he had now performed; and begged for Bertrand's forgiveness for the injury he had done him. "I do not know," he said, "in what position I shall stand with regard to the law; I fully own that I righteously deserve punishment; but, if it rests with you to bring me to it, I ask you to remember that I am an old man, and already punished bitterly by myself and by my own remorse; yet I do not ask forbearance so much on my own account, as for that of my innocent son, whose future will be ruined by my public disgrace. As far as pecuniary compensation goes for the loss you have sustained, that might be exacted by the law from Sir Roland Cameron. He, of course, will not be in a position to meet the demand, and I shall therefore offer to pay you, at once, the sum of