"That, you may be sure, we shall be forced to do. Clapp will give us trouble enough, I warrant; he will leave no stone unturned that a dirty lawyer can move. It will be vexatious, but there cannot be a doubt as to the result."
"You encourage me," said Mrs. Stanley; "and yet the idea of entering into a suit of this kind is very painful!"
"If it be a conspiracy, there is no treatment too bad for those who have put the plot together!" exclaimed Harry. "What a double-dyed villain Clapp must be!"
"He will end his career in the State-Prison," said Mr. Wyllys.
"The Hubbards, too; that is another disagreeable part of the business," said Harry.
"I am truly sorry for them," replied Mr. Wyllys. "It will give them great pain."
"What steps shall we first take, sir?" inquired Harry.
"We must look into the matter immediately, of course, and find out upon what grounds they are at work."
"I am utterly at a loss to comprehend it!" exclaimed Mrs.
Stanley. "Such a piece of bare-faced audacity!"
"Clapp must rest all his hope of success on our want of positive proof as to the death of William Stanley," observed Harry. "But his having dared to bring forward an individual to personate the dead man, is really a height of impudence that I should never have conceived of."