to have a talk with me, and we went on to try and see old Rad,
who is dying, I am afraid, poor chap."

"Now, my dear," he added turning to Louisa whilst he dived into his
breast-pocket, from which he extracted a note-book, "go to your own
room and read this through very quietly while I talk to your father."

He gave her the book, which she took without a word.

"It won't," he added, "take you very long to read. When you have
finished, bring me the notes back, I want them to-night."

She kissed her father before she went out of the room. He and she had
both guessed--by that unexplainable, subtle intuition born of
sympathy--what the pages of that note-book contained.

CHAPTER XLI

WHICH TELLS OF THE CONTENTS OF THE NOTE BOOK

Louisa sat beside the fire and read. The notes were written in Sir
Thomas's clear caligraphy, in short, jerky sentences, just as the sick
man had spoken them, usually in reply to questions put to him.

As Louisa read on, she could almost hear Lord Radclyffe's whispered
words, whilst she herself sang Tosti's melancholy song: "Good-bye!"

"I was not altogether ignorant of my brother Arthur's marriage over in
Martinique, but he had always given me to understand that the marriage
was not a strictly legal one, and that his son Philip had no right
whatever to claim any possible succession to our family title and
estates. Even on his deathbed Arthur assured me of this, and said to
me most emphatically 'Luke is your heir! My son Philip has no legal
claim!'

"I never made the slightest effort to communicate with Arthur's widow
or with his child, for Arthur had assured me that they were well
provided for and quite happy amongst their own kindred. After the
catastrophe of St. Pierre I completely lost sight of them.

"Then came a letter addressed to me from St. Vincent, the first
inkling which I had that not only did Arthur's son know of his
father's position in life, but that he had full and justifiable
reasons for believing that he himself was heir presumptive to the
family title and estates which would have been his father's, had the
latter outlived the present holder.

"This letter was followed by several others about which neither Luke
nor Mr. Warren knew anything, for I told them nothing. At last there
came one from Brussels. By this time I had searched carefully through
some letters which my brother Arthur had desired that I should destroy
after his death, but which I had always kept