Lucius untied the string. There were about a dozen letters; some in a woman’s hand, fine, delicate, and essentially un-English; the others in a masculine caligraphy, by no means too legible. The first was directed to Ferdinand Sivewright, at a post-office in Oxford-street, but bore neither the date nor the address of the writer. This was in the man’s hand, written upon the paper of a fashionable club, and ran thus: ‘Thanks, my dear Sivewright, for your last. You are indeed a friend, and worth all my aristocratic acquaintance, who pretend the warmest friendship, but would not go half-a-dozen paces out of their way to save me from hanging. You, by your prompt assistance, have rescued me from the greatest difficulty in which my imprudence—and I have always been the most imprudent of men—ever involved me. Thank Heaven and your tact, the danger is over, and I think I now stand secure of the old gentleman’s favour. Did he know the truth, or but a scintillation of the truth, I should inevitably lose all chance of that future prosperity which will, I trust, enable me a few years hence to give you some substantial proof of my gratitude. ‘By the way, you talk of being hard up in the present. I regret to say, my dear fellow, that at this moment it is out of my power to help you with a stiver. Not that I for an instant ignore the obligation to provide for your small charge, but because just now I am entirely cleaned out. A few weeks hence I shall be no doubt able to send you a cheque. In the mean time your household is a prosperous one, and the cost your kindness to me may occasion is one that can scarcely be felt. You understand. How fares your little girl? I shall always be glad to hear. Madame D—— writes to me for news; so pray keep me _au courant_, that I may set her anxious mind at rest. O, Sivewright, how I languish for an end of all my secrets and perplexities, and for a happy union with her I love! This waiting for dead men’s shoes is a weary business, and makes me feel the most despicable of mankind.—Yours ever, H. G.’ ‘What do you make of that letter?’ asked Mr. Sivewright. ‘I can hardly tell what to make of it at present. Your son must have been of some vital service to the writer, but what the nature of that friendly act is more than I can guess.’ ‘You will understand it better when you have read the rest of the letters. Now, I have sometimes thought that the writer of those lines was the father of Lucille.’ ‘On what ground?’ asked Lucius. ‘He distinctly says, “How fares _your_ little girl?”’