'Nay, Shafto--not yet--not till I am gone--a short time now. I can trust you, with your sharpness and legal acumen, with the handling of this matter entirely. When I am gone, and laid beside your aunt Flora, by the wall of the old church yonder,' he continued with a very broken voice--one almost a childish treble, 'you will seek the person to whom this packet is addressed, Kenneth Kippilaw, a Writer to the Signet in Edinburgh--he is alive still; place these in his hands, and he will do all that is required; but treasure them, Shafto--be careful of them as you would of your soul's salvation--for my sake, and more than all for the sake of Florian! Now, my good lad, give me the composing draught--I feel sleepy and so weary with all this talking, and the thoughts that have come unbidden--unbidden, sad, bitter, and angry thoughts--to memory.' Shafto locked the desk, put it aside, and, giving his uncle the draught, stole softly away to his own room with the papers, to con them over and to--think! He had not sat at a desk for three years in Lawyer Carlyon's office without having his wits sharpened. He paused as he put the documents away. 'Stop--stop--let me think, let me consider!' he exclaimed to himself, and he certainly did consider to some purpose. He was cold and calculating; he was never unusually agitated or flustered, but he became both with the thoughts that occurred to him now. Among the papers and letters entrusted to him were the certificates of the marriage of Lennard and Flora, and another which ran thus: 'Certificate of entry of birth, under section 37 of 17 and 18 Vict., cap. 80.' It authenticated the birth of their child Florian at Revelstoke, with the date thereof to a minute. These documents were enclosed in a letter written in a tremulous and uncertain hand by Lennard Melfort to Mr. Kenneth Kippilaw, part of which was in these terms: The child was baptized by a neighbouring clergyman--the Rev. Paul Pentreath--who has faithfully kept the promise of secrecy he gave me, and, dying as I now feel myself to be, I pray earnestly that my father and mother will be kind to my orphan son. Let them not--as they one day hope for mercy at that dread throne before which I am soon to appear--visit upon his innocent head my supposed and most heavily punished offence. Let him succeed in poor Cosmo's place to that which is his due; let him succeed to all I renounced in anger--an anger that has passed away, for now, my dear old friend, I am aged beyond my years, and my hair is now white as snow through ill-health contracted in India, where, to procure money necessary for my poor Flora, I volunteered on desperate service, and in seasons destructive to existence. In your hands I leave the matter with perfect hope and confidence. The bearer will tell you all more that may be necessary.'