"Now!" he said, as his three companions bent eagerly over these exhibits, "Look at those three letters. All bear the same signature, Marston Greyle--but the hand-writing of those two is as different from that of this one as chalk is from cheese!" CHAPTER XIV BY PRIVATE TREATY There was little need for the three deeply interested listeners to look long at the letters--one glance was sufficient to show even a careless eye that the hand which had written one of them had certainly not written the other two. The letter which Audrey had handed to Mr. Dennie was penned in the style commonly known as commercial--plain, commonplace, utterly lacking in the characteristics which are supposed to denote imagination and a sense of artistry. It was the sort of caligraphy which one comes across every day in shops and offices and banks--there was nothing in any upstroke, downstroke or letter which lifted it from the very ordinary. But the other two letters were evidently written by a man of literary and artistic sense, possessing imagination and a liking for effect. It needed no expert in handwriting to declare that two totally different individuals had written those letters. "And now," observed Mr. Dennie, breaking the silence and putting into words what each of the others was vaguely feeling, "the question is--what does all this mean? To start with, Marston Greyle is a most uncommon name. Is it possible there can be two persons of that name? That, at any rate, is the first thing that strikes me." "It is not the first thing that strikes me," said Mrs. Greyle. She took up the typescript which the old actor had brought in his packet, and held its title-page significantly before him. "That is the first thing that strikes me!" she exclaimed. "The Marston Greyle who sent this to Bassett Oliver said according to your story--that he sprang from a very old family in England, and that this is a dramatization of a romantic episode in its annals. Now there is no other old family in England named Greyle, and this episode is of course, the famous legend of how Prince Rupert once sought refuge in the Keep yonder and had a love-passage with a lady of the house. Am I right, Mr. Dennie?" "Quite right, ma'am, quite correct," replied the old actor. "It is so--you have guessed correctly!" "Very well, then--the Marston Greyle who wrote this, and those letters, and who met Bassett Oliver was without doubt the son of Marcus Greyle, who went to America many years ago. He was the same Marston Greyle, who, his father being dead, of course succeeded his uncle, Stephen John Greyle--that seems an absolute certainty. And in that case," continued Mrs. Greyle, looking earnestly from one to the other, "in that case--who is the man now at Scarhaven Keep?"