“You wrote that you were confident of victory, and your looks bear it out,” she said, ’with a radiant smile; “but I would have come just the same, even had there been no hope of success for you.”

“I need no assurance of your faith and loyalty,” he replied, gazing tenderly into her luminous eyes, “but your coming will make my triumph ten times sweeter.”

“Of course you will spend the evening with, us at our hotel, — uncle cabled for apartments at the Savoy, — and I am all impatience to learn whatever you are at liberty to tell me concerning your case, for there must have been some wonderful developments in your favor soon after your arrival in this country, you have seemed so much more hopeful; and do not let me forget, I have something to show you which will interest you.  It is a written statement by Hugh Mainwaring himself regarding this identical will that is causing all this controversy.”

“A statement of Hugh Mainwaring’s!” Harold repeated in astonishment; “how did it come into your possession?”

“That is the strangest part of it,” she replied, hurriedly, for they had now reached the carriages in waiting for them.  “I received it through the mail, from America, a few days before I left London, and from — you cannot imagine whom — Mr. Merrick, the detective.  How he ever knew my address, or how he should surmise that I was particularly interested in you,” she blushed very prettily with these words, “is more than I can understand, however.”

“I think I can explain that part of it,” said Harold, with a smile; “but how such a statement ever came into his hands is a mystery to me.  I will see you this evening without fail,” and, assisting Miss Carleton into the carriage, he bade her au revoir, and hastened to rejoin young Mainwaring.

That evening witnessed rather a novel reception in the private parlors of the Savoy; both parties to the coming contest being entertained by their mutual friends.  When Harold Mainwaring finally succeeded in securing a tete-a-tete conversation with Miss Carleton, she placed in his hands a small packet, saying,-

“You will find in this the statement of which I spoke to you, and I wish you would also read the accompanying note, and explain how the writer came to have so good an understanding of the situation.”

With eager haste he drew forth a sheet of paper little less time-worn and yellowed than the ancient will itself, upon which was written, in the methodical business hand with which he was so familiar, a brief statement to the effect that a certain accompanying document described as the last will and testament of Ralph Maxwell Mainwaring had been drawn and executed as such on the night preceding his death, its intent and purpose being to reconvey to an elder son the family estate, to which he had previously forfeited all right and title; that efforts made to communicate with the beneficiary had proved unavailing, as he had left the country and his place of residence was unknown.  Then followed Hugh Mainwaring’s signature.  At the bottom of the page, however, was a foot-note of much later date, which put a different complexion on the foregoing, and which read as follows: