After this he proceeded to inform his mother that he had bought for her in Leadenhall Street the silver forks she had wished for, and was about to pack them up, and send them (with this letter enclosed in the parcel) by coach to Hereford, where his mother then was.

“Why did you show me this?” said John in a low, husky tone.  “There is nothing in it.”

“I found it,” Valentine replied, “carefully laid by itself in a desk, as being evidently of consequence.”

“We know that all the other Melcombes died peaceably in their beds,” John answered; “and it shows (what I had been actually almost driven to doubt) that this poor young fellow did also.  There is no real evidence, however, that the letter was written in London; it bears no post-mark.”

“No,” said Valentine; “how could there be?  It came in a parcel.  THE LETTER, John, will tell you nothing.”

“I don’t like it,” John Mortimer answered.  “There is a singular formality about the narrative;” and before he laid it down he lifted it slightly, and, as it seemed half unconsciously, towards the light, and then his countenance changed, and he said beneath his breath, “Oh, that’s it, is it!”

Valentine started from the sofa.

“What have you found?” he cried out, and, coming behind John, he also looked through the paper, and saw in the substance of it a water-mark, showing when it had been pressed.  Eighteen hundred and seven was the date.  But this letter was elaborately dated from some hotel in London, 1804.  “A lie! and come to light at last!” he said in an awe-struck whisper.  “It has deceived many innocent people.  It has harboured here a long time.”

“Now, wait a minute,” answered John.  “Stop—­no more.  You asked me to be considerate to you.  Be also considerate to me.  If, in case of your death, there is left on earth no wrong for me to right, I desire you to be silent for ever.”

He took Valentine by the arm and helped him to the sofa, for he was trembling with excitement and surprise.

“There is no wrong that can be righted now,” Valentine presently found voice enough to say; “there never has been from the first, unless I am mistaken.”

“Then I depend on your love for me and mine—­your own family—­to be silent in life, and silent after death.  See that no such letters as these are left behind you.”

“I have searched the whole place, and there is not another letter—­not one line.  You may well depend on me.  I will be silent.”

John stood lost in thought and amazement; he read Daniel Mortimer’s letter again, folded it reverently, and pressed it between his hands.  “Well, I am grateful to him,” Valentine heard him whisper, and he sank into thought again.

“Our fathers were perfectly blameless,” said Valentine.

John roused himself then.  “Evidently, thank God!  And now these two letters—­they concern no one but ourselves.”  He approached the grate; a fire was burning in it.  He lifted off the coals, making a hollow bed in its centre.  “You will let me burn them now, of course?”