We are never so well inclined to believe in a stroke of good fortune as when one has just been dealt to us.  Valentine was almost sure he was going to read of something that would prove to be to his advantage.  His uncle had behaved so strangely in providing him with his last bounty, that it was difficult for him not to connect this letter with that gift.  Something might have been made over to his father on his behalf, and, with this thought in his mind, he unfolded the sheet of foolscap and read as follows:—­

“My much-loved Son,—­You will see by the date of this letter that my dearest boy Valentine is between seventeen and eighteen years of age when I write it.  I perceive a possible peril for him, and my brother being old, there is no one to whom I can so naturally appeal on his behalf as to you.

“I have had great anxiety about you lately, but now you are happily restored to me from the sea, and I know that I may fully trust both to your love and your discretion.

“Some men, my dear Giles, are happy enough to have nothing to hide.  I am not of that number; but I bless God that I can say, if I conceal aught, it is not a work of my own doing, nor is it kept secret for my own sake.

“It is now seven weeks since I laid in the grave the body of my aged mother.  She left her great-grandson, Peter Melcombe, the only son of my nephew Peter Melcombe, whose father was my fourth brother, her sole heir.

“I do not think it wise to conceal from you that I, being her eldest surviving son, desired of her, that she would not—­I mean, that I forbad my mother to leave her property to me.

“It is not for me to judge her.  I have never done so; for in her case I know not what I could have done, but I write this in the full confidence that both of you will respect my wishes; and that you, Giles, will never divulge my secret, even to Valentine, unless what I fear should come to pass, and render this necessary.

“If Peter Melcombe, now a child, should live to marry, and an heir should be born to him, then throw this letter into the fire, and let it be to you as if it had never been written.  If he even lives to come of age, at which time he can make a will and leave his property where he pleases, you may destroy it.

“I do not feel afraid that the child will die, it is scarcely to be supposed that he will.  I pray God that it may not be so; but in case he should—­in case this child should be taken away during his minority, I being already gone—­then my grandfather’s will is so worded that my son Valentine, my only son, will be his heir.