‘Do not doubt that, should God spare me to enjoy the fortune to which Mr. G. looks forward, I shall most liberally reward your goodness to one born under an evil star. ‘I have the honour to remain, yours, ‘FELICIE G. ‘P.S. My name here is Madame Dumarques.’ ‘That,’ exclaimed Lucius, ‘must surely be the letter of a mother!’ ‘Yes; and not a letter from a wife to her husband. The Mr. G. spoken of in the letter is evidently the husband of the writer.’ ‘Strange that the care of a beloved child should have been intrusted to such a man as your son.’ ‘Men of pleasure have few friends,’ answered Mr. Sivewright. ‘I daresay this Mr. G. had no one save the companion of the gaming-table to whom he could appeal in his difficulty.’ ‘Do you consider there is sufficient evidence here to show that Lucille was the child alluded to?’ ‘No other child ever came to Bond-street.’ ‘True. Then the case seems clear enough. She was not your son’s daughter, but the child of these people, and committed to his care.’ ‘Read on, and you will discover farther details of the affair.’ The fourth letter was from ‘H. G.’ It was evidently written in answer to a letter of complaint or remonstrance from Ferdinand Sivewright. It ran thus: ‘My dear Fellow,—Your reproaches are most unjust. I always send money when I have it; but I have not acquired the art of coiner, nor am I clever enough to accomplish a successful forgery. In a word, you can’t get blood out of a stone. You have had some hundreds since you first took charge of the little one; and in any other home I had found for her, she would not have cost me a third of the money. I do not forget that you helped me out of a diabolical difficulty, and that if you had not happened to be our visitor when the old gentleman surprised me in our Devonian cottage, and if you had not with sublime tact assumed _my_ responsibilities, I should have been irretrievably ruined. Never shall I forget that midsummer morning when I had to leave all I loved in your care, and to turn my back upon that dear little home, to accompany my uncle to London, assuming the careless gaiety of a bachelor, while my heart was racked with anguish for those I left behind. However, we played the comedy well, and, please God, the future will compensate Felicie and me for all we have suffered in the past and suffer in the present. Be as reasonable, dear old fellow, as you have been useful, and rely upon it I shall by and by amply reward your fidelity.—Yours, H. G.’