till flashed on the distant sea, the park still stretched
away below him--but all seemed part of another world to the heir of
Maxfield.

His brother--that wild-eyed, fascinating, defiant boy in the picture--
lived still, and all this place was his. Till that moment Roger had
never imagined what it would be to be anything but the heir of Maxfield.

Every dream of his for the future had Maxfield painted into the
background. He loved the place as his own, as his sphere in life, as
his destiny. Was that a dream after all? Were all his castles in the
air to vanish, and leave him a mere dependant in a house not his own?

He took up the document and read it over. It was brief and abrupt.
Referring to the former will, it enjoined that all its provisions should
remain strictly in force as if no codicil or later will had been
executed until the 26th of October, 1886, on which day Roger Ingleton
the younger should attain his majority. But if on or before that day
the elder son, whom the testator still believed to be living, should be
found and identified, the former will on that day was to become null and
void, and the elder son was to become sole possessor of the entire
property. If, on the contrary, he should not be found or have proved
his identity by that day, then the former will was to hold good
absolutely, and the codicil became null and void.

Such, shorn of its legal verbiage, was the document which Roger, by the
same hand that executed it, was invited, if he wished, to destroy.
Perhaps for a moment, as his eyes glanced once more across the park, and
a vision of Rosalind flitted across his mind, he was tempted to avail
himself of his liberty. But if the idea endured a moment it had
vanished a moment after.

He went up to the piano, where Mr Armstrong, still in the clouds, was
roaming at will over the chords, and laid his father's letter on the
keyboard.

"Read that, please, Armstrong."

The tutor wheeled round on his stool, and put up his glass. Something
in the boy's voice arrested him.

He glanced first at his pupil, then at the paper.

"A private letter?" said he.

"I want your help; please read it."

The tutor's inscrutable face, as he perused the letter carefully from
beginning to end, afforded very little direction to the boy who sat and
watched him anxiously. Having read it once, Mr Armstrong turned back
to the first page and read it again; and then with equal care perused
the codicil. When