n in a much clearer chirography
than the latter, where it grew fainter and more irregular as it
proceeded, until at last, in the signature, it was so nearly illegible
as to baffle the ingenuity of the reader to decipher it; as if, in the
course of her task, the strength of the dying writer had grown weaker and
weaker, until at the end the pen must have fallen from her failing hand.

The Duke of Hereward, who could not make out the name at the bottom of
the letter, at once recognized the handwriting at the top, and knew that
his correspondent from the dead was his lost wife, Valerie de la Motte.

He grew cold with the chill of an anticipated horror; but with that
supreme power of self-control which was as much a matter of constitution
as of education with him, he suppressed all signs of emotion, and
courteously apologized to his visitor, saying:

"Excuse me, young sir; my eyes are not so good as they were some twenty
years ago, and I must turn to the light," and he deliberately wheeled his
chair around so as to bring his face entirely out of range of his
visitor's sharp vision, while he should read the fatal letter, which
was as follows:

"SAN VITO, ITALY, MARCH 1st, 18--

"DUKE OF HEREWARD: This paper will be handed you by
Archibald-Alexander-John Scott, my son and yours.

"This news will startle you, if you have not already been sufficiently
startled by the living likeness of the boy to yourself, and by the
electric chain of memory which will bring before you the weeks
immediately preceding our separation, when you yourself had suspicions
of my condition, and hopes of becoming a father. Those fond hopes were
destined to be fulfilled by me, but doomed to be ruined by you.

"Yes, Duke of Hereward, your son stands before you, strong, healthy,
beautiful, perfect as ever wife bore to her husband; yet denied,
delegalized, and defrauded by you, his father!

"If you are inclined still to deny him, turn and look upon him, as he
stands, and you can no longer do so. If you want further proof, find it
in these circumstances: That this letter is written, and these statements
are made by a dying woman, with the immediate prospect of eternity and
its retribution before her.

"But on one point be at ease before you read farther; the boy does not
know who his father is, and therefore does not know how grievously, how
irretrievably you wronged him by divorcing his mother and delegalizing
him before his birth. I would not put e