Lord Penlyn took up the letter that was lying on his table, and proceeded to open it, throwing himself at the same time wearily into an arm-chair. He recognised Ida's handwriting, and as he did so he wondered if, by any possibility, the letter could be about the subject of which all London was talking to-day---the murder of Walter Cundall. When he saw that there was another one inclosed in it, the handwriting of which he did not know, his curiosity was so aroused (for he wondered how a stranger to him should know, or suppose, that he was at Belmont), that he opened this one first and read it. Read it carefully from beginning to end, and then dropped it on the floor as he put his hands up to his head, and wailed, "Murdered! Oh my God! Murdered! When he had written this letter only an hour before." And then he wept long and bitterly. The letter ran: MY BROTHER, "Since I saw you last Saturday I have been thinking deeply upon what passed between us, and I have come to the conclusion that, after all, it will be best for nothing to be said to any one on the subject of our father's first marriage; not even to Miss Raughton or her father. By keeping back the fact that you have an elder brother, no harm is done to any one. I shall never marry now, and consequently, you are only taking possession of what will be yours, or your children's, eventually. No one but you, your friend Mr. Smerdon, and I, know of this secret; let no one ever know it. We love the same woman, and, when she is your wife, I shall have the right to love her with a brother's love. Let us unite together to make her life as perfectly happy as possible. To do this we must not begin by undeceiving her as to the position she is to hold. "I suggest this, nay, I command you to do this, because of my love for her, a love which desires that her life may be without pain or sorrow. I shall not witness her happiness with you, not yet at least, for I do not think I could bear that; but, in some future years, it may be that time will have so tempered my sorrow to me, that I shall be able to see you all in all to each other, perhaps to even witness your children playing at her knee, and to feel content. I pray God that it may be so. "Remember, therefore, what I, by my right as your elder brother--which I exert for the first and last time!--charge you to do. Retain your position, still be to the world what you have been, and devote your life to her. "I have one other word to say. The Occleve property is a comfortable, though not a remarkably fine, one. You have heard of my means, and they are scarcely exaggerated. If, at any time, there is any sum of money you or she may want, come to me and you shall have it. "Let us forget the bitter words we each spoke in our interview. Our lives are bound up in one cause, and that, and our relationship, should prevent their ever being remembered. "Your brother, "WALTER."