ation that sorted better with
what Mr. Caryll knew of his father, than the supposition that so dull
and practical and self-centered a nature could have been irradiated by
a gleam of such tenderness as the hoarding of those letters might have
argued.

He continued to turn them over, half-mechanically, forgetful of the
urgent need to burn the treasonable documents he had secured, forgetful
of everything, even Hortensia's presence. And meantime she watched him
in silence, marvelling at this delay, and still more at the gray look
that had crept into his face.

"What have you found?" she asked at last.

"A ghost," he answered, and his voice had a strained, metallic ring. He
even vented an odd laugh. "A bundle of old love-letters."

"From her ladyship?"

"Her ladyship?" He looked up, an expression on his face which seemed to
show that he could not at the moment think who her ladyship might be.
Then as the picture of that bedaubed, bedizened and harsh-featured
Jezebel arose in his mind to stand beside the sweet girl--image of
his mother--as he knew her from the portrait that hung at Maligny--he
laughed again. "No, not from her ladyship," said he. "From a woman who
loved him years ago." And he turned to the seventh and last of those
poor ghosts-the seventh, a fateful number.

He spread it before him; frowned down on it a moment with a sharp hiss
of indrawn breath. Then he twisted oddly on his chair, and sat bolt
upright, staring straight before him with unseeing eyes. Presently he
passed a hand across his brow, and made a queer sound in his throat.

"What is it?" she asked.

But he did not answer; he was staring at the paper again. A while he
sat thus; then with swift fevered fingers he took up once more the other
letters. He unfolded one, and began to read. A few lines he read, and
then--"O God!" he cried, and flung out his arms under stress of 'his
emotions. One of them caught the taper that stood upon the desk; and
swept it, extinguished, to the floor. He never heeded it, never gave a
thought to the purpose for which it had been fetched, a purpose not yet
served. He rose. He was white as the dead are white, and she observed
that he was trembling. He took up the bundle of old letters, and thrust
them into an inside pocket of his coat.

"What are you doing?" she cried, seeking at last to arouse him from the
spell under which he appeared to have fallen. "Those letters--"

"I must see Lord Ostermore," he answered wil