“It is very strange.” He opened the box. “Now, here are private papers of Sir Gaston Belward, more than two hundred years old, found almost fifty years ago by myself in the office of our family solicitor. Listen.” He then began to read from the faded manuscript. A mysterious feeling pervaded the room. Once or twice Cluny gave a dry nervous kind of laugh. Much of what Gaston had said was here in stately old-fashioned language. At a certain point the MS. ran: “I drew back and said, ‘As your grace will have it, then--“’ Here Gaston came to a sitting posture, and interrupted. “Wait, wait!” He rose, caught one of two swords that were crossed on the wall, and stood out. “This is how it was. ‘As your grace will have it, then, to no waste of time!’ We fell to. First he came carefully and made strange feints, learned at King Louis’s Court, to try my temper. But I had had these tricks of my cousin Secord, and I returned his sport upon him. Then he came swiftly, and forced me back upon the garden wall. I gave to him foot by foot, for he was uncommon swift and dexterous. He pinched me sorely once under the knee, and I returned him one upon the wrist, which sent a devilish fire into his eyes. At that his play became so delicate and confusing that I felt I should go dizzy if it stayed; so I tried the one great trick cousin Secord taught me, making to run him through, as a last effort. The thing went wrong, but checking off my blunder he blundered too,--out of sheer wonder, perhaps, at my bungling,--and I disarmed him. So droll was it that I laughed outright, and he, as quick in humour as in temper, stood hand on hip, and presently came to a smile. With that my cousin Secord cried: ‘The king! the king!’ I got me up quickly--” Here Gaston, who had in a kind of dream acted the whole scene, swayed with faintness, and Cluny caught him, saving him from a fall. Cluny’s colour was all gone. Lady Dargan had sat dazed, and Sir William’s face was anxious, puzzled. A few hours later Sir William was alone with Gaston, who was recovered and cool. “Gaston,” he said, “I really do not understand this faculty of memory, or whatever it is. Have you any idea how you come by it?” “Have we any idea how life comes and goes, sir?” “I confess not. I confess not, really.” “Well, I’m in the dark about it too; but I sometimes fancy that I’m mixed up with that other Gaston.” “It sounds fantastic.” “It is fantastic. Now, here is this manuscript, and here is a letter I wrote this morning. Put them together.” Sir William did so. “The handwriting is singularly like.” “Well,” continued Gaston, smiling whimsically, “suppose that I am Sir Gaston Belward, Baronet, who is thought to lie in the church yonder, the title is mine, isn’t it?” Sir William smiled also. “The evidence is scarce enough to establish succession.” “But there would be no succession. A previous holder of the title isn’t dead: ergo, the present holder, has no right.”