Rejecting Janet’s proffered arm, which she was in the habit of leaning on in her perambulations about the house and grounds, Lady Chillington walked slowly and painfully out of the room.  Presently she returned, carrying an open letter in her hand.  Both the ink and the paper on which it was written were faded and yellow with age.

“This is the last letter I ever received from my son,” said her ladyship.  “I have preserved it religiously, and it bears out very singularly what you, Sergeant, have just told me respecting the message which my darling sent me with his dying breath.  In a few lines at the end he makes mention of a something of great value which he is going to bring home with him; but he writes about it in such guarded terms that I never could satisfy myself as to the precise meaning of what he intended to convey.  You, Miss Hope, will perhaps be good enough to read the lines in question aloud.  They are contained in a postscript.”

Janet took the letter with reverent tenderness.  Lady Chillington’s trembling fingers pointed out the lines she was to read.  Janet read as under:—­

“P.S.—­I have reserved my most important bit of news till the last, as lady correspondents are said to do.  Observe, I write ’are said to do,’ because in this matter I have very little personal experience of my own to go upon.  You, dear mum, are my solitary lady correspondent, and postscripts are a luxury in which you rarely indulge.  But to proceed, as the novelists say.  Some two years ago it was my good fortune to rescue a little yellow-skinned princekin from the clutches of a very fine young tiger (my feet are on his hide at this present writing), who was carrying him off as a tit-bit for his supper.  He was terribly mauled, you may be sure, but his people followed my advice in their mode of doctoring him, and he gradually got round again.  The lad’s father is a Rajah, immensely rich, and a direct descendant of that ancient Mogul dynasty which once ruled this country with a rod of iron.  The Rajah has daughters innumerable, but only this one son.  His gratitude for what I had done was unbounded.  A few weeks ago he gave me a most astounding proof of it.  By a secret and trusty messenger he sent me—­But no, dear mum, I will not tell you what the Rajah sent me.  This letter might chance to fall into other hands than yours (Indian letters do sometimes miscarry), and the secret is one which had better be kept in the family—­at least for the present.  So, mother mine, your curiosity must rest unsatisfied for a little while to come.  I hope to be with you before many months are over, and then you shall know everything.

“The value of the Rajah’s present is something immense.  I shall sell it when I get to England, and out of the proceeds I shall—­well, I don’t exactly know what I shall do.  Purchase my next step for one thing, but that will cost a mere trifle.  Then, perhaps, buy a comfortable estate in the country,