writing you this letter,
hoping it finds you well, as it leaves me at present. I wish to tell you
that it's all serene now with me and my wife, she having forgiven all
bygones and let them be. Your kindness to me whilst I was laid up at
your God-forsaken place--begging your pardon, sir, but I was anxious to
be off again, as you know--but your kindness, as I say, and good advice,
was such that I make bold to dare and ask you to forgive bygones, like
as my good wife has done. I'm sure your Miss Marjory is as sweet a young
lady as you could wish to see, and your living image, eyes and hair and
all. It is said about here--begging your pardon, sir--that, because the
old man was rough on you, you won't acknowledge or take notice of your
child. They say he's too proud to ask you to come home; and she, poor
lamb, don't even know that she has a father. Things ain't as they ought
to be altogether in this world, but you can do a deal to put some of
them straight, sir, if I may make bold to say so. It is some time since
I seen you, but directly my wife told me Miss Marjory's name and story,
I knew you was her father. I haven't breathed of this to any one, let
alone Miss Marjory herself, but I am sure that if you was to come you
would see that I am right. I do beg your pardon if anything I have
written is not as it should be betwixt you and me, sir; but I am now so
happy myself through the forgiving of old bygones that I am all for
trying to make things straight; which, hoping you will soon do, I am
your obedient servant,

"SAMUEL HIGGS SHAW."

* * * * *

Mr. Davidson smiled as he put down Captain Shaw's letter. He had
received both the communications within a mail of each other, and one
supplied information that the other lacked. He had turned the matter
over in his mind this way and that, and he now felt very little doubt
that this Marjory Davidson was indeed his child. And yet why should the
fact that he had a child have been kept from him all these years? What
reason could his brother-in-law have had for withholding the knowledge
from him? It was all a mystery. He looked back over the lonely years
since his wife's death, remembering how in the bitterness of his grief
he had thrown himself heart and soul into his work, and had laid the
foundations of a fortune. He thought of the time when the rush of
gold-seekers to the Klondike had first started, and he had left the
company he then represented