"I do not have it; but it is among your papers in the bureau for
Personal Affairs."

In a minute Daniel was in the office where those papers were kept, and
obtained, not without much trouble, and under certain conditions only,
leave to look at his papers. He opened the parcel with feverish haste;
and the very first paper that fell in his hands was a letter, dated the
day before, in which he urgently requested the minister to grant him the
special favor of being sent out with the expedition to Cochin China on
board the frigate "Conquest."

Daniel was, of course, perfectly sure that he had written no such
letter.

But the handwriting was so precisely like his own, letter for letter,
and even his signature was so admirably imitated, that he felt for a
moment utterly bewildered, mistrusting, for a second, his own eyes, his
own reason. The whole was done so exceedingly well, that if the matter
had been one of ordinary importance, and the date of the letter had gone
back to a fortnight or so ago, he would certainly have suspected his
memory rather than the letter before him.

Overcome by the atrocity of such a trick, he exclaimed,--

"It is almost incredible!"

It was, however, only too certain, too indisputable, that the letter
could not have been dictated by any one but Miss Brandon. No doubt, one
of her accomplices, perhaps the great Sir Thorn himself, had written it.
Ah! now Daniel understood the insolent assurance of Miss Brandon, when
she insisted upon his taking poor Malgat's letters, and repeatedly said,
"Go and show them to the clerks who have known that unhappy man for long
years, and they will tell you if they are his own." Most assuredly he
would have met with no one bold enough to say the contrary, if Malgat's
handwriting had been copied with the same distressing perfection as his
own.

Still he might, perhaps, profit by this strange event; but how?

Ought he to mention his discovery? What would have been the use? Would
they believe him, if he accused her of forgery, of a trick unsurpassed
in boldness and wickedness? Would they even consent to an investigation;
and, if they instituted one, what would be the result? Where would they
find an expert ready to swear that this letter was not written by him,
when he himself, if each line had been presented to him separately,
would have felt bound to acknowledge it as his own?

Was it not far more probable, on the contrary, that, after what he had
done in the