Anthony Castlemaine took up his hat, and put forth his hand. "I am very sorry, Uncle Peter. It might have saved so much trouble. Perhaps I shall have to go to law."
The banker shook hands with him in a sufficiently friendly spirit: but he did not ask him to remain, or to call again.
"One hint I will give you, Anthony," he said, as the young man turned to the door; and he spoke apparently upon impulse. "Were you to expend your best years and your best energies upon this search, you would be no wiser than you are now. The Castlemaines do not brook interference; neither are their affairs conducted in that loose manner that can afford a possibility of their being inquired into; and so long as Mr. Castlemaine refuses to allow you ocular proof, rely upon it you will never get to have it. The Castlemaines know how to hold their own."
"I am a Castlemaine, too, uncle, and can hold my own with the best of them. Nothing will turn me from my course in this matter, save the proofs I have asked for."
"Good-morning, Anthony."
"Good-day, Uncle Peter."
Anthony put on his coat in the hall, and went forth into the street. There he halted; looking this way and that way, as though uncertain of his route.
"A few doors on the right hand, on the other side the market-house, John Bent said," he repeated to himself. "Then I must cross the street, and so onwards."
He crossed over, went on past the market-house, and looked attentively at the doors on the other side it. On one of those doors was a brass plate: "Mr. Knivett, Attorney-at-law." Anthony Castlemaine rang the bell, asked if the lawyer was at home, and sent in one of his cards.
He was shown into a small back room. At a table strewn with papers and pens, sat an elderly man with a bald head, who was evidently regarding the card with the utmost astonishment. He turned his spectacles on Anthony.