"Madam:--It is not my fault if the contents of this letter should prove unpleasant to you. You know the veneration I feel for yourself and your whole family; you know the zeal I have always shown in your service, and the gratitude I have felt for your amiable hospitality in former days, and especially during the last happy days. If I must, therefore, speak and act in a manner which seems to contradict these sentiments, I hope you will see at once that the contradiction is only apparent, and that I am compelled to act by a principle which is even higher than personal friendship and individual respect: I mean the duty we all owe to Justice.
"This innate sense of right, which I have no doubt inherited from my sainted father, forces me to inform you, without the slightest delay, of a most remarkable discovery which I have recently made.
"You know that my father was a lawyer in Grunwald; that his practice was as large as his reputation for uprightness, conscientiousness, and ability was extensive, and that he counted the very first families of the province among his clients. Thus he stood also in his business relations with Baron Harald Grenwitz, and was, moreover, as I have often heard him relate, bound to him by personal friendship. At least my father frequently mentioned that the late baron intrusted him with the management of the most delicate family matters. The truth of this assertion is strongly confirmed by the discovery of which I have spoken before.
"It consists in this: I have found, by chance, several packages of papers and letters, all of which once belonged to Baron Harald, and were by him intrusted to my father for unknown purposes (as there is no explanation given anywhere in the baron's handwriting, or in my father's). In all probability they were intended to help my father in discovering the child to which the baron had, in a special codicil, bequeathed a considerable fortune. There is no doubt, at all events, that such a search can only be begun by the aid of these letters and papers, and, of course, they are indispensable for success. I am also persuaded that nothing but my father's sudden death has prevented him from obtaining such a result, and that an able lawyer could easily take up the thread of his investigations where it dropped from the hand of my father.
"The papers consist of, 1. A bundle of letters of a certain Mademoiselle Marie Montbert, addressed to Baron Harald Grenwitz; 2. A like bundle of letters written by the baron to the young lady; 3. Several letters from a certain Monsieur d'Estein to Mademoiselle Montbert; 4. Several family documents concerning Mademoiselle Montbert; 5. A perfect copy of the last will of Baron Harald, together with the codicil, which contains, as you know, not only the conditions attached to the legacy, but also the means by which the child in question may most easily be discovered and authenticated. You know that the codicil contains, in this part, the names of Mademoiselle Montbert and of Monsieur d'Estein, and it need not be stated that these persons are the same as those who wrote the above-mentioned letters.
"So far, all I have reported to you has nothing especially surprising for those who are not personally interested in the affair. But what I have to say next is so extraordinary that I must ask your permission to state it in person, I can only tell you, that in Mr. d'Estein's letters the name occurs which that gentleman proposed to adopt after having succeeded in rescuing Mademoiselle Montbert, and that this name, if you simply leave off the d' and the E, agrees with that of a gentleman who has been living for some time in your family. I may add that, for my part, I am fully convinced of the identity of this person with the unknown heir to Stantow and Baerwalde, especially in consequence of communications made to me by that person himself about his family and his early youth.
"While this is my personal conviction, I have yet taken care not to mention it as yet to the person in question, as, after all, there might be some doubt about it yet, and I did not wish to excite hopes which might possibly not be realized.
"I break off here, in order not to anticipate too fully my oral report (perhaps you will shortly be in Grunwald? or do you desire me to come to Grenwitz?), and also in order not to risk too much in confiding these valuable secrets to a letter.
"Accept, madam, the assurances of my," etc., etc., etc.
"Here is a 'Turn-over,'" said Felix, turning over the last page.