“But if the old woman had,” began Valentine vehemently, and paused.

“How can that be?” answered Giles.  “He says, ’I know not in her case what I could have done,’ and that he has never judged her.”

Valentine heaved up a mighty sigh, excitement made his pulses beat and his hands tremble.

“What made you think,” he said, “that it was so long ago?  I am so surprised that I cannot think coherently.”

“To tell you why I think so, is to tell you something more that I believe you don’t know.”

“Well,” said the poor fellow, sighing restlessly, “out with it, Giles.”

“Your father began life by running away from home.”

“Oh, I know that.”

“You do?”

“Yes, my dear father told it to me some weeks before he died, but I did not like it, I wished to dismiss it from my thoughts.”

“Indeed! but will you try to remember now, how he told it to you and what he said.”

“It was very simple.  Though now I come to think of it, with this new light thrown upon it—­Yes; he did put it very oddly, very strangely, so that I did not like the affair, or to think of it.  He said that as there was now some intercourse between us and Melcombe, a place that he had not gone near for so very many years, it was almost certain, that, sooner or later, I should hear something concerning himself that would surprise me.  It was singular that I had not heard it already.  I did not like to hear him talk in his usual pious way of such an occurrence; for though of course we know that all things are overruled for good to those who love God——­”

“Well?” said Brandon, when he paused to ponder.

“Well,” repeated Valentine, “for all that, and though he referred to that very text, I did not like to hear him say that he blessed God he had been led to do it; and that, if ever I heard of it, I was to remember that he thought of it with gratitude.”

Saying this, he turned over the pages again.  “But there is nothing of that here,” he said, “how did you discover it?”

“I was told of it at Melcombe,” said Brandon, hesitating.

“By whom?”

“It seemed to be familiarly known there.”  He glanced at the Times which was laid on the table just beyond the desk at which Valentine sat.  “It was little Peter Melcombe,” he said gravely, “who mentioned it to me.”

“What! the poor little heir!” exclaimed Valentine, rather contemptuously.  “I would not be in his shoes for a good deal!  But Giles—­but Giles—­you have shown me the letter!”

He started up.

“Yes, there it is,” said Giles, glancing again at the Times, for he perceived instantly that Valentine for the first time had remembered on what contingency he was to be told of this matter.

There it was indeed!  The crisis of his fate in a few sorrowful words had come before him.

“At Corfu, on the 28th of February, to the inexpressible grief of his mother, Peter, only child of the late Peter Melcombe, Esq., and great-grandson and heir of the late Mrs. Melcombe, of Melcombe.  In the twelfth year of his age.”