“You should have a safe place for those doctor.  Strange events happen in life.  They might possibly be required some day as evidences of identification.”

“Not much fear of that,” returned the doctor, with a smile.  “Still, as you say, it is best to be cautious.”

“Here is the first—­you may as well keep it with the rest,” said Lord Charlewood; “it is a copy of my marriage certificate.  Then you have here the certificates of my little daughter’s birth and of my poor wife’s death.  Now we will add to these a signed agreement between you and myself for the sum I have spoken about.”

Rapidly enough Lord Charlewood filled up another paper, which was signed by the doctor and himself; then Stephen Letsom gathered them all together.  Margaret Dornham saw him take from the sideboard a plain oaken box bound in brass, and lock the papers in it.

“There will be no difficulty about the little lady’s identification while this lasts,” he said, “and the papers remain undestroyed.”

She could not account for the impulse that led her to watch him so closely, while she wondered what the papers could be worth.

Then both gentlemen turned their attention from the box to the child.  Lord Charlewood would be leaving directly, and it would be the last time that he, at least, could see the little one.  There was all a woman’s love in his heart and in his face, as he bent down to kiss it and say farewell.

“In three years’ time, when I come back again,” he said, “she will be three years old—­she will walk and talk.  You must teach her to say my name, Mrs. Dornham, and teach her to love me.”

Then he bade farewell to the doctor who had been so kind a friend to him, leaving something in his hand which made his heart light for many a long day afterward.

“I am a bad correspondent, Dr. Letsom,” he said; “I never write many letters—­but you may rely upon hearing from me every six months.  I shall send you half-yearly checks—­and you may expect me in three years from this at latest; then my little Madaline will be of a manageable age, and I can take her to Wood Lynton.”

So they parted, the two who had been so strangely brought together—­parted with a sense of liking and trust common among Englishmen who feel more than they express.  Lord Charlewood looked round him as he left the town.

“How little I thought,” he said, “that I should leave my dead wife and living child here!  It was a town so strange to me that I hardly even knew its name.”

On arriving at his destination, to his great joy, and somewhat to his surprise, Lord Charlewood found that his father was better; he had been afraid of finding him dead.  The old man’s joy on seeing his son again was almost pitiful in its excess—­he held his hands in his.

“My son—­my only son! why did you not come sooner?” he asked.  “I have longed so for you.  You have brought life and healing with you; I shall live years longer now that I have you again.”