There was that in his countenance
which I do not like to read in the faces of my friends. He was silent
for several minutes; at last he said quickly, sternly: 'Is there no
instrument, Mr Sharp, in all the enginery of law, that can defeat a
worthless villain's legal claim to his child?'
'None; except, perhaps, a commission of lunacy, or'----
'Tush! tush!' interrupted Dutton; 'the fellow has no wits to lose.
That being so---- But let us talk of something else.' We did so, but
on his part very incoherently, and I soon bade him good-night.
This was December, and it was in February the following year that
Dutton again called at our place of business. There was a strange,
stern, iron meaning in his face. 'I am in a great hurry,' he said,
'and I have only called to say, that I shall be glad if you will run
over to the farm to-morrow on a matter of business. You have seen,
perhaps, in the paper, that my dwelling-house took fire the night
before last. You have not? Well, it is upon that I would consult you.
Will you come?' I agreed to do so, and he withdrew.
The fire had not, I found, done much injury. It had commenced in a
kind of miscellaneous store-room; but the origin of the fire appeared
to me, as it did to the police-officers that had been summoned,
perfectly unaccountable. 'Had it not been discovered in time, and
extinguished,' I observed to Mrs Rivers, 'you would all have been
burned in your beds.
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