Lucius had taken these letters into his custody with the determination to turn them to good account. If it were within the limits of possibility, he would discover the secret to which these letters afforded so slight a clue. That was the resolve he had made when he took the packet from Homer Sivewright’s desk—and time in nowise diminished the force of his intention. But he had no heart to begin his search just yet, while Lucille was dangerously ill. In the mean time he thought the matter over, repeatedly deliberating as to the best means of beginning a task which promised to be difficult. Should he consult Mr. Otranto—should he commit his chances to the wisdom and experience of that famous private detective? His own answer to his own question was a decided negative. ‘No,’ he said to himself, ‘I will not vulgarise the woman I love by giving the broken links of the story of her birth to a professional spy, leaving him to put them together after his own fashion. If there should be a blot upon her lineage, his worldly eyes shall not be the first to discover the stain. Heaven has given me brains which are perhaps as good as Mr. Otranto’s; and constancy of purpose shall stand me in the stead of experience. I will do this thing myself. Directly Lucille is in a fair way to recovery, I will begin my task; and it shall go hard with me if I do not succeed.’ The days passed slowly enough for the parish doctor’s hard-worked brain, which felt weary of all things on earth, or of all those things which made up the sum of his monotonous life. September had begun, and a slight improvement had arisen in Lucille’s condition. She was a little stronger, a little more cheerful—had rewarded her doctor’s care with just a faint shadow of her once-familiar smile. She had been lifted out of her bed too one warm afternoon, and wrapped in her dressing-gown and an old faded Indian shawl that had belonged to Homer Sivewright’s Spanish wife, and placed in an easy-chair by the open window to drink tea with Mrs. Milderson. Whereupon there had been a grand tea-drinking, to which Lucius was admitted, and in which there was some touch of the happiness of bygone days. ‘Do you remember the first time you gave me a cup of tea, Lucille,’ said Lucius, ‘that winter’s night, in the parlour down-stairs?’ The girl’s eyes filled with sudden tears, and she turned her head aside upon the pillow that supported it. ‘I was so happy then, Lucius,’ she said; ‘now I am full of cares.’ ‘Needless cares, believe me, dearest,’ answered her lover. ‘Your grandfather is a great deal better—weak still, but much stronger than you are. He will be down-stairs first, depend upon it. I should have brought him in to take tea with us this afternoon if I had not been afraid of agitating you. I never had such a nervous excitable patient.’