blunder. But it may prove to be strictly true; and in that case it will
be _every_ thing that the deeds should be executed and the purchase
completed before the arrival of this person, and the public notification
of Mark Wylder's death.

'What a world it is, to be sure!' thought Mr. Larkin, as he shook his
long head over Dutton's letter. 'How smoothly and simply everything would
go, if only men would stick to truth! Here's this letter--how much time
and trouble it costs me--how much opportunity possibly sacrificed, simply
by reason of the incurable mendacity of men.' And he knocked the back of
his finger bitterly on the open page.

Another thought now struck him for the first time. Was there no mode of
'hedging,' so that whether Mark Wylder were living or dead the attorney
should stand to win?

Down came the Brandon boxes. The prudent attorney turned the key in the
door, and forth came the voluminous marriage settlement of Stanley
Williams Lake, of Slobberligh, in the county of Devon, late captain, &c.,
&c. of the second part, and Dorcas Adderley Brandon, of Brandon Hall, in
the county of &c., &c. of the second part, and so forth. And as he read
this pleasant composition through, he two or three times murmured
approvingly, 'Yes--yes--yes.' His recollection had served him quite
rightly. There was the Five Oaks estate, specially excluded from
settlement, worth 1,400_l._ a year; but it was conditioned that the said
Stanley Williams Lake was not to deal with the said lands, except with
the consent in writing of the said Dorcas, &c., who was to be a
consenting party to the deed.

If there was really something 'unsound in the state of Lake's relations,'