And Carteret, thus admonished—­partly to pacify her, partly to satisfy a very vital curiosity which stirred in him to compass the length, breadth, and height of this queer business, learn the truth and so set certain vague and agitating fears at rest—­did as Damaris bade him.  Standing in the conflicting gaslight and moonlight, the haunted quiet of the small hours broken only by the trample and wash of the sea, he read Darcy Faircloth’s letter from its unconventional opening, to its equally unconventional closing paragraph.

“Now my holiday is over and I will close down till next Christmas night—­unless miracles happen meanwhile—­so good-bye—­Here is a boatload of my lads coming alongside, roaring with song and as drunk as lords.—­God bless you.  In spirit I once again kiss your dear feet”—­

Carteret straightened himself up with a jerk.  Looked at Damaris sitting very still, a little sunk together, as in weariness or dejection upon the stone bench.  His eyes blazed fierce, for once, with questions he burned yet dreaded to ask.  But on second thoughts—­they arrived to him swiftly—­he restrained his impatience and his tongue.  Mastering his heat he looked down at the sheet of note-paper again.  He would obey Damaris, absorb the contents of this extraordinary document, the facts it conveyed both explicitly and implicitly, to the last word before he spoke.

Happily the remaining words were few.  “Your brother,” he read, “till death and after”—­followed by a name and date.

At the name he stared fairly confounded.  It meant nothing whatever to him.—­That is, at first.  Then, rising as a vision from out some subconscious drift of memory, he saw the cold, low-toned colouring of wide, smooth and lonely waters, of salt-marsh, of mud-flat and reed-bed in the lowering light of a late autumn afternoon—­a grey, stone-built tavern, moreover, above the open door of which, painted upon a board, that same name of Faircloth figured above information concerning divers liquors obtainable within.  Yes—­remembrance grew more precise and stable.  He recalled the circumstances quite clearly now.  He had seen it on his way back from a solitary afternoon’s wild fowl shooting on Marychurch Haven; during his last visit to Deadham Hard.

So much was certain.  But the name in its present connection?  Carteret’s imagination shied.  For, to have the existence of an illegitimate son of your oldest and dearest friend thus suddenly thrust upon you, and that by a young lady of the dearest friend’s family, is, to say the least of it, a considerable poser for any man.  It may be noted as characteristic of Carteret that, without hesitation, he recognized the sincerity and fine spirit of Faircloth’s letter.  Characteristic, also, that having seized the main bearings of it, his feeling was neither of cynical acquiescence, or of covert and cynical amusement; but of vicarious humiliation, of apology and noble pitying shame.