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258 "Lives in the city, I see! Are the children with her here?"

"Only the younger, I am told. The elder has 'an infirmity,' and is at present in an institution. It seems a great cross to the mother; in fact her anxiety and distress, because of this child, have made her almost indifferent about this business of the fortune. In short"—and here the lawyer glanced askance at his vis-à-vis—"I'm afraid she is not the—the sort of claimant you have expected to see. And there seems to be no one of the other sex in the family."

"Well, well!" Ferrars threw himself back in the big office chair, assuming an easy and almost careless attitude.

"Tell me all about her, Myers. Is she old, or young? Handsome or not?"

The face of the lawyer was overspread with a cynical smile. He had expected to see disappointment, consternation, perhaps, in the face of the detective, when he heard that the English claimant to the Paisley fortune was a woman lorn and lone. His heart was in the work they were engaged upon. Robert Brierly's interests were his own; but, still, this cool, emotionless detective, whom he liked well, had more than once piqued and puzzled him. He believed that Ferrars was quite prepared to meet with, and hear of, quite another sort