"Did your father tell you them?"
"I do not remember so, though he may have."
"Did you ever see this box?"
"Never before."
"You do not know what is in it?"
"Not in the least."
"And you have never seen this key?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"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: