letter
had disclosed.

He was startled out of the narrow limits of his own little grief by the
vibration of the table at which he sat, under a hand that was laid on it
heavily. The instinct of reluctance was strong in him; but he conquered
it, and looked up. There, silently confronting him in the mixed light of
the yellow candle flame and the faint gray dawn, stood the castaway of
the village inn--the inheritor of the fatal Armadale name.

Mr. Brock shuddered as the terror of the present time and the darker
terror yet of the future that might be coming rushed back on him at the
sight of the man's face. The man saw it, and spoke first.

"Is my father's crime looking at you out of my eyes?" he asked. "Has the
ghost of the drowned man followed me into the room?"

The suffering and the passion that he was forcing back shook the hand
that he still kept on the table, and stifled the voice in which he spoke
until it sank to a whisper.

"I have no wish to treat you otherwise than justly and kindly," answered
Mr. Brock. "Do me justice on my side, and believe that I am incapable of
cruelly holding you responsible for your father's crime."

The reply seemed to compose him. He bowed his head in silence, and took
up the confession from the table.

"Have you read this through?" he asked, quietly.

"Every word of it, from first to last."

"Have I dealt openly with you so far. Has Ozias Midwinter--"

"Do you still call yourself by that name," interrupted Mr. Brock, "now
your true name is known to me?"

"Since I have read my father's confession," was the answer, "I like my
ugly alias better than ever. Allow me to repeat the question which I was
about to put to you a minute since: Has Ozias Midwinter done his best
thus far to enlighten Mr. Brock?"

The rector evaded a direct reply. "Few men in your position," he said,
"would have had the courage to show me that letter."

"Don't be too sure, sir, of the vagabond you picked up at the inn till
you know a little more of him than you know now. You have got the secret
of my birth, but you are not in possession yet of the story of my life.
You ought to know it, and you shall know it, before you leave me alone
with Mr. Armadale. Will you wait, and rest a little while, or shall I
tell it you now?"

"Now," said Mr. Brock, still as far away as ever from knowing the real
character of the man before him.

Everything Ozias Midwinter said, everything Ozias Midwinter did, was
against