Dear Charlotte--God nearly broke my heart since I saw you. He nearly took my boy away. In that process my pride has gone, though my love and tenderness and gratitude to you remain, for with this fifty pounds you are saving my child's little life. Thank you for it. God will bless you for it. You will never--never regret this deed. It will come back to you, the remembrance of it, in the midst of your own wealth and affluence, or if dark days visit you, you will let your thoughts wander to it as a place of safe anchorage in the storm. It will, all your life long, be a source to you of rejoicing that you saved a father's and mother's hearts from breaking, and kept a precious little life in this world. I can add no more now, my dear. For this money must be spent, and at once. Oh! precious, valuable gold, which is to keep Harold with me! I will write to you when we come back from Torquay; do not come to see me before, it would not be safe for you. Ever, my dear friend, because of you, the happiest and most grateful mother on God's earth, CHARLOTTE HOME. Charlotte Harman's face was very white when, after reading this letter, she raised her eyes to Hinton's. What had been written with all joy and thankfulness was received with pain. Why had Hinton kept this thing from her? Why had he not told her where he had been staying? "You kept a secret from me," she said, and her eyes filled with heavy tears. Then as he tried to comfort her, being very compunctious himself at having failed utterly to trust one so brave and noble, she suddenly drew herself from his embrace. "John," she said, with some pride in her voice, "did you in any degree keep this thing from me because you believed Mrs. Home's story about my grandfather's will?" "I had a thousand nameless reasons for not telling you, Charlotte. My principal one after the child got ill was my fear that you would come to the house, and so run the risk of infection." "Then you do not at all believe Mrs. Home's story?" "I have not investigated it, my darling. I have done nothing but simply listen to what you yourself told me. _You_ do not believe it?" "Certainly not! How could I? It implicates my father." "We will not think of it, Charlotte." "We must think of it, for justice must be done to this woman and to her children; and besides, I wish to clear it up, for I will not have my father blamed." Hinton was silent. Charlotte gazed at him eagerly, his silence dissatisfied her. His whole manner carried the conviction that his faith in her father was by no means equal to hers. "Is it possible to see wills?" she asked suddenly. "Certainly, dear; anybody can see any will by paying a shilling, at Somerset House." "Would my grandfather's will be kept at Somerset House?" "Yes. All wills are kept there."