AN UNEXPECTED DTSCOVEKY 375 Tufton. He could not give me the original, as it would be required as an evidence of my father’s identity in the application he is about to make for me to be declared heir to the title.”

“ Then Gregory has been dead eighteen years ! ” the elder of the ladies said. “We have always hoped that he would be alive in one of the colonies, and that sooner or later he would see the advertisement that had been put in the papers.”

“ Ho, madam; he went out to Alexandria with my mother shortly before I was born. He died some three or four years before his brother. It was seldom my mother saw an English paper. Unfortunately, as it turned out, my father had dropped his surname when he accepted a situation, which was a subordinate one, at Alexandria, and his reason for taking it was, that my mother was in weak health and the doctor said it was necessary she should go to a warm climate ; therefore had any of her friends seen the advertisement, they would not have known that it applied to her. I myself did not know that my proper name was Hartley until a year back, when I discovered my father’s journal at Hebbeh, the place where he was murdered, and then opened the documents that my mother had entrusted to me before her death, with an injunction not to open them until I had ascertained for certain that my father was no longer alive.”

One of the ladies took the letter and opened it. They read it together. “ Poor Gregory ! ” one said, wiping her eyes, “ we were both fond of him, and certainly would have done all in our power to assist his widow. He was nearer our age than Geoffrey. It was a terrible grief to us when he quarrelled with our father. Of course our sympathies were with Gregory, but we never ventured to say so, and our father never mentioned his name from the day he left the house. Why did not your mother send his letter to us ? ” “ Because she did not need assistance. She was maintaining herself and me in comfort by teaching music, French, and English to the wives and children of several of the high Egyptian officials.”