All I have to say is, if those attorneys are retained in the case, it certainly looks as though our opponent must have some tenable ground in support of his claim.

I am inclined to think they will make us a hard fight, but I am confident that we will win in the end.

The main point is this: we must be prepared to meet them on whatever ground they may take, and, after hearing their side and the proof they set up, we can easily determine our line of defence." "To the deuce with your line of defence! I tell you, Whitney, there is just one point to be maintained, and, by my soul, it shall be maintained at any cost!" and the speaker emphasized his words by bringing his clinched hand down upon a table beside him with terrific force "that point is this: Harold Scott Mainwaring never had a living, lawful son; no such person exists, or ever has existed on the face of the earth, and I can prove what I say." "Have you absolute proof of that ?" Mr.Whitney inquired, quickly.
"I have," replied Ralph Mainwaring, triumphantly, while his cold, calculating gray eyes glittered like burnished steel.

"If any man thinks I have been asleep for the past twenty-one years, he is deucedly mistaken.

Mr.Whitney, since the day of that boy's birth," pointing to his son, "I have had but one fixed resolve, which has been paramount to everything else, to which everything else has had to subserve,--the Mainwaring estate with its millions should one day be his.