“Secundo,” continued the old officer, “he was doubtful whether you were in your right senses, and I agree with him, since he has told me that you yourself have solicited this appointment on foreign service in the most urgent terms.”

Daniel was stunned, and stammered out,—­

“His Excellency is mistaken.”

“Ah!  I beg your pardon, M. Champcey; I have myself seen your letter.”

But already a sudden inspiration had, like a flash of lightning, cleared up the mystery in Daniel’s mind.

“Ah!  I wish I could see it too!  Captain, I beseech you show me that letter!”

The old officer began almost to think that Champcey was really not in his right mind.  He answered,—­

“I do not have it; but it is among your papers in the bureau for Personal Affairs.”

In a minute Daniel was in the office where those papers were kept, and obtained, not without much trouble, and under certain conditions only, leave to look at his papers.  He opened the parcel with feverish haste; and the very first paper that fell in his hands was a letter, dated the day before, in which he urgently requested the minister to grant him the special favor of being sent out with the expedition to Cochin China on board the frigate “Conquest.”

Daniel was, of course, perfectly sure that he had written no such letter.

But the handwriting was so precisely like his own, letter for letter, and even his signature was so admirably imitated, that he felt for a moment utterly bewildered, mistrusting, for a second, his own eyes, his own reason.  The whole was done so exceedingly well, that if the matter had been one of ordinary importance, and the date of the letter had gone back to a fortnight or so ago, he would certainly have suspected his memory rather than the letter before him.

Overcome by the atrocity of such a trick, he exclaimed,—­

“It is almost incredible!”

It was, however, only too certain, too indisputable, that the letter could not have been dictated by any one but Miss Brandon.  No doubt, one of her accomplices, perhaps the great Sir Thorn himself, had written it.  Ah! now Daniel understood the insolent assurance of Miss Brandon, when she insisted upon his taking poor Malgat’s letters, and repeatedly said, “Go and show them to the clerks who have known that unhappy man for long years, and they will tell you if they are his own.”  Most assuredly he would have met with no one bold enough to say the contrary, if Malgat’s handwriting had been copied with the same distressing perfection as his own.

Still he might, perhaps, profit by this strange event; but how?

Ought he to mention his discovery?  What would have been the use?  Would they believe him, if he accused her of forgery, of a trick unsurpassed in boldness and wickedness?  Would they even consent to an investigation; and, if they instituted one, what would be the result?  Where would they find an expert ready to swear that this letter was not written by him, when he himself, if each line had been presented to him separately, would have felt bound to acknowledge it as his own?