Wilfred burst open the missive. It was a terrible communication, and contained his father’s decision concerning him--an _ultimatum_ from which by experience he knew there was no appeal. Therein his father refused to see him again, and discarded him as his son for ever. Under pain of his curse, he commanded him to abandon the name of Manwaring, and, from the day following forward, to abstain from holding any correspondence either with himself or with any other member of his Family. He ordered him to prepare to start next morning by the 7.40 train from Oswaldshaugh, which was the nearest railway station (with characteristic formality and littleness of mind, the writer prided himself on inserting this detail), and directed him to go to London, and present himself at the office of his Town solicitors, Messrs. Prodgers & Sharpin, who, as he was no longer worthy to bear the Family Name, had directions to apprentice him under that of Thomas Brown to some respectable grocer in a distant part of England. “You have forfeited the right to call yourself a Gentleman, or to associate with the equals of my Family. I have therefore desired my solicitors to pay the premium necessary for your apprenticeship to a trade; and lest you should be tempted to further crime, I enclose a note for £10. This is the last remittance and the last communication you will ever receive from him whose disgrace it is that he was once your father.--C. P. M.” When the boy had read this dreadful letter, he sat like one dazed, white and still, with silent tears of anguish flowing down his pallid cheeks. He was roused by the entrance of his sister, who rushed into the room, flung her arms around him, and mingled her tears with his. “My darling, darling brother!” she cried at length. “Then you don’t believe me guilty, Evelyn?” gasped out the wretched boy. “Guilty? No, impossible!” she cried, clinging to him fondly. “Then I have some hope left in life,” answered the lad, in low, measured tones. “My darling brother,” resumed Evelyn, “how my heart does bleed for you!” “God bless you, dear,” said Wilfred. “But, tell me, what will Lionel think, when he hears I am sent away from home as a thief?” Yes, what would Lionel think? that bright, brave Captain of Dragoons, whom Wilfred had ever looked up to as his ideal of a knight of old; that kind and noble brother, who loved him so well, and had taught him to swim and ride and shoot, and who, from African bivouacs and African fastnesses, wrote him such tender letters? It was a bitter thought, and Wilfred wept afresh.