"Yes," I answered; "a burial vault."
"Have you ever been in it?"
"Yes, once; at the burial of one of our servants," I replied, availing myself of the orthodox Jesuit doctrine of mental reservation.
"Do you think your father would be likely to place the treasure in that vault?" was the next question.
"I do not know as to that," I answered. "I suppose he might. But I rather imagine that what silver there was, was buried somewhere about the orchard."
My uncle continued questioning me for some time, but as I could not tell him what I did not know, he was not much the wiser for my replies. He did not half believe that we had carried off the jewels, and declared that he meant to write to Lord Stanton on the subject of "my property," as I called it.
"It is mine," I replied indignantly; "my mother left it to me."
My uncle laughed contemptuously.
"Your mother had no more right to it than you have," said he. "Being married to your father, as they presume to say, by a Protestant minister, the marriage is no marriage by law. It was not worth a pin. You are an illegitimate child, and as such have no rights whatever. My brother's succession belongs to me, and I intend to have it."
"It is the truth, my daughter," said Father Martien, as I looked at him. "The blasphemous parody of the holy sacrament of marriage with which your wretched and guilty parents were united was not only invalid but was of itself a grievous crime in the eye of the law as well as of the Church."