"What, then, was to be done? Jean Mettot cast about in his mind for some time, considering the matter, but at length came to the conclusion that the crisis, spoken of by the original dauphin, had now arrived and that the time was come to disclose the secret to some one. But to whom? That was the great question. Suddenly he bethought himself of me, the present Marquis de Fenouil. He had not the slightest idea whether the secret of the dauphin's escape had been transmitted in our family, but, taking the risk, he wrote me a full account of the whole proceeding, throwing the present little orphan, so to speak, on my mercy. "And now at last I enter. I cannot, indeed, give you the slightest idea what this wonderful news meant to me. The secret _had_ been transmitted,--aye, it had become a sacred tradition in our family! Many long and fruitless searches had we made,--I, my father, and my grandfather before us,--to trace, if possible, the fate of that lost dauphin. Not one of us but would have sacrificed his all to have made sure of the after-history of our adored little monarch. The portrait that you have seen, and those of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, which I have always kept veiled, have been our most cherished family possessions, especially that of the dauphin. We worshipped the memory of that heroic little uncrowned monarch. "Can you then understand what it meant to me to find myself at last on the track of a true descendant of the dauphin? For a time I could scarcely credit it. But I knew from my grandfather the part played by the original Jean Mettot, and I could see no reason to doubt that this tale of his descendant was genuine. My first impulse was to send for them at once, and to bring the child up as my own son, till he should be of suitable age to disclose the secret to him. But there were a number of strong objections to that course. I need not mention them all. One is sufficient. For the past twenty years I have not been strong. My health is only sustained by constant treatment from physicians, and I spend three quarters of my time at sanitariums and health resorts. I am seldom, if ever, in residence at my French estate. There were a number of other legal reasons why it was not wise for me to appear to adopt a child, presumably as my heir, which you would scarcely understand, so I will not recount them. Suffice it to say that I decided on a course which may seem strange to you, but which appealed to me as wisest at the time.