“My twenty-first birthday arrived, and the mysterious little packet was placed in my hands.  It contained a few valuable keepsakes and my father’s letter, written out of the bitter anguish of a broken heart.  He told the story of his disinheritance, with which you are familiar; but the loss of the property he cared little for in comparison with the loss of his father’s love; but even that was as nothing to the sorrow which followed swiftly and which broke his heart.  He stated that, because of this great sorrow, he had placed me in the hands of trusted friends that I should be banished from the false-hearted woman who had borne me and who believed me dead, as it was his wish that neither of us should ever know of the existence of the other.”

Harold Mainwaring paused for a moment, and Miss Carleton, who had been listening with great interest, exclaimed, —

“And is it possible, Mr. Mainwaring, that, in all these years, you have had no knowledge concerning your mother?”

“It is a fact, Miss Carleton, that I do not even know her name, or whether or not she is living.  I only hope and pray that I may never knowingly meet her, for her heart and life must be — pardon the expression — as false and as black as hell itself.”

There was a look on his face which Miss Carleton had never seen.  Gradually, however, his features softened, and he continued,-

“In accordance with my father’s wish, expressed in the letter, that I should complete my studies in England, I sailed for that country within a few weeks of my twenty-first birthday; and while there I learned that part of my story which is of more especial interest to all parties concerned at the present time.

“I had been but a few months in England when I felt a great desire to visit, incognito, the old Mainwaring estate.  Accordingly, under the name by which you have known me, I arrived at the estate, only to learn that the home of my father’s boyhood, and of the Mainwarings for several generations, had passed into the hands of strangers.  My grandfather had died within two years of my father’s marriage, and the younger son had sold the estate and gone to America.  Incidentally, I was directed to an old servant of my grandfather’s, who yet remained on the place and who could give me its whole history.  That servant, Miss Carleton, was old James Wilson, the father of John Wilson, Ralph Mainwaring’s present valet.”

“Ah!” ejaculated Miss Carleton, her face lighting with pleasure; “I have seen the trusty old fellow hundreds of times, you know.  Indeed, he could give you the history of all the Mainwarings for the last three hundred years.”

“He gave me one very important bit of history,” Harold Mainwaring replied, with a smile.  “He told me that old Ralph Mainwaring, after the departure of his son for Australia, failed rapidly.  He was slowly but surely dying of a broken heart, and, though he never mentioned the name of his elder son, it was evident that he regretted his own harshness and severity towards him.