You know me too well and too long to suppose that I am actuated by motives of mere curiosity, or simply the desire to trace the history of a crime. I own to you, that with all my horror of blood, I scarcely grieve as I witness the fruitless attempts of English justice to search out the story of a murder. I feel a sort of satisfaction at the combat between Saxon dulness and Celtic craft--between the brute force of the conqueror and the subtle intelligence of the conquered--that tells me of a time to come when these relations shall be reversed. Acquit me, therefore, of any undue zeal for the observance of laws that only remind me of our slavery. However clear and limpid the stream may look, I never forget that its source was in foulness! I am impelled here by a force that my reason cannot account for. My boyhood was, in some manner, bound up with this Godfrey's fate. I was fatherless when he died! could he have been my father? This thought continually recurs to me! Such a discovery would be of great value to me just now; the question of legitimacy would be easily got over, as I seek for none of the benefits of succession. I only want what will satisfy the Sacred College. My dear Michel, I commit all this to your care and industry; give me your aid and your advice. Should it happen that Dalton was involved in the affair, the secret might have its value. This old field- marshal's pride of name and family could be turned to good account. “I must tell you that since I have overheard this boy's ravings, I have studiously avoided introducing my Irish _protégé_ into the sickroom. My friend, Paul Meekins, might be a most inconvenient confidant, and so I shall keep him under my own eye till some opportunity occurs to dispose of him. He tells me that his present tastes are all ecclesiastical. Do you want a sacristan? if so, he would be your man. There is no such trusty subordinate as the fellow with what the French call 'a dark antecedent;' and this I suspect to be his case. “I have well wearied you, my dear friend, and yet have I not told you half of what I feel on this strange matter. I am little given to tremble at shadows, and still there are terrors over me that I cannot shake off. Write to me, then, at once; tell me all that you see, all that you can hear. Observe well the localities; it will be curious if the boy be correct. Mark particularly if there be a spot of rising ground from which the garden is visible, and the windows that look into it, and see if there be a door out of the garden at this point. I could almost map out the scene from his description.