‘Good! Now, those letters and that miniature contain the whole mystery of Lucille’s birth. I have tried many times to read the riddle, but in vain. Your sharper wits may perchance find the solution of the problem.’ ‘You mean as regards the identity of Lucille’s mother?’ asked Lucius. ‘I mean as regards the identity of her father and her mother,’ answered the old man. ‘There have been times when I have doubted whether Lucille is a Sivewright at all—whether the girl I have called my grandchild is the daughter of my son Ferdinand.’ Lucius Davoren’s heart gave a great leap. Good heavens, what a relief if it were thus—if this girl whom he so fondly loved were free from the taint of that villain’s blood! For some moments he was dumb. The thought of this possible release overcame him utterly. God grant that this were but true—that the man he had slain bore no kindred to the woman who was to be his wife! He opened the morocco-case, and looked at it with eager eyes, as if in the lifeless images it contained he might find the clue to the mystery. The case was double, and contained two miniatures: one of a man with a weak but patrician face, the nose an elongated aquiline, the lips thin, the chin feeble, the forehead high and pale, the eyes a light blue; the countenance of some last scion of a worn-out race; not without an expression of nobility, but utterly without force of character. The second miniature was a woman’s face—pensive, tender, lovable; a face with soft black eyes, a thoughtful mouth, a low broad forehead, in which there were ample indications of intellect. The olive complexion, the darkness of the lustrous eyes, gave a foreign look to this countenance. The original might have been either French or Italian, Lucius thought, but she could hardly have been an Englishwoman. ‘What reason have you to doubt Lucille’s parentage?’ he asked the old man, after a prolonged examination of those two miniatures. ‘My only reasons are contained in that packet of letters,’ answered Mr. Sivewright. ‘Those letters are the broken links in a chain which you may be able to piece together. I have puzzled over them many a time, as I told you just now, but have been able to make nothing of them.’ ‘Am I to read them?’ ‘Yes, read them aloud to me; I may be able to furnish you with an occasional commentary on the text.’ ‘First, tell me how they came into your possession.’ ‘That is easily done. When my son left Bond-street for the last time, after plundering my iron safe, he did not burden himself with luggage. He left all his worldly goods behind him, in the shape of a dilapidated leathern portmanteau full of old clothes. Amongst these I found that packet of letters and that miniature case, both of which he had doubtless forgotten. Now you know just as much about them as I do.’