"Your most affectionate mother,
"H. Brotherton.
"P.S.—Pray don't turn George out at the end of the month."
This he accepted without anger as being natural, but threw aside as being useless. Of course he would not answer it. They all knew that he never answered their letters. As to the final petition he had nothing to say to it.
The next was from Lord George, and shall also be given:—
"My dear Brotherton,—I cannot let the tidings which I have just heard pass by without expressing my sympathy. I am very sorry
indeed that you should have lost your son. I trust you will credit me for saying so much with absolute truth.
"Yours always,
"George Germain."
"I don't believe a word of it," he said almost out loud. To his thinking it was almost impossible that what his brother said should be true. Why should he be sorry,—he that had done his utmost to prove that Popenjoy was not Popenjoy? He crunched the letter up and cast it on one side. Of course he would not answer that.
The third was from a new correspondent; and that also the reader shall see;—
"My dear Lord Marquis,—Pray believe that had I known under what great affliction you were labouring when you left Rudham Park I should have been the last man in the world to intrude myself upon you. Pray believe me also when I say that I have heard of your great bereavement with sincere sympathy, and that I condole with you from the bottom of my heart. Pray remember, my dear Lord, that if you will turn aright for consolation you certainly will not turn in vain.