“Can it be possible that I have found a clew at last?” he muttered, in a repressed tone. “I am afraid it will prove but a faint one, but it may be something to begin upon.” The following is what he read from that torn sheet of paper, which had been torn lengthwise in a very irregular manner: “MY DEAR AN regret that I have your mother. Of cour you alone, and that the for life only must now cea unprovided for. My poor lit nothing to comfort you, for I kno cold words are at such a ti heart is with you. I sorrow with sible I would come to you you in this sad hour. But favor of you, Annie. We hav life, and surely you will “I want you to remain in your home for the future past. It is yours without “You must not, however, stay there not be safe, and I want you to panion; some one older tha be a sort of protector to you. expense, Annie, for you know I have a right to care for you “Inclosed you will find che your present necessities, and will make some perman for you. Write me at once anxious until I hear from “Ever y Such was the fragment which Everet Mapleson found, and he read it over several times, his face growing whiter, graver, and more thoughtful with each perusal. “At last!” he cried, striking his clenched hand upon the desk before him. “I have felt it coming, and now I will follow it up. I will leave no stone unturned until I get to the bottom of the whole matter. How tenderly affectionate this letter must have been,” he continued, with curling lips. “He sorrows with her, and would have come to her ‘had it been possible’. He evidently wanted her to remain here after her mother died until he could come. Meantime he advises a companion and protector, and does not wish her to ‘mind the expense,’ because he has a ‘right to care’ for her, and incloses a check as substantial evidence of the fact. “Why didn’t she stay here, I wonder?” he pursued, musingly. “Why did she go to Richmond to look for a situation as governess, or was that only a blind to cover her flight—to deceive him. There is a mystery about it. Can it be possible——” He sprang to his feet with the sentence unfinished on his lips, and began pacing the floor with a clouded brow, and his mouth drawn into a stern, resolute line. “She is dead, though, if she was Geoffrey Dale Huntress’ mother—and I’m as certain of that as that I am the heir of Vue de l’Eau—for that woman, Margery, said that he could not realize his loss when she died. But who was his father?—why was he named Geoffrey Dale? by whom and why was he abandoned in the streets of New York? There is some dark secret connected with Annie Dale’s life and her disappearance from Richmond, and I shall never rest until I know the whole story from beginning to end.”