“Well, I am a man of very few words, which you will admit is singular in a member of the legal profession. The facts in the case are these: Last summer there walked into my office a gentleman whose card I have here with me.”
Ralph glanced at the bit of pasteboard, and was strangely thrilled to read the name “Arnold Gregory Musgrove.”
“Musgrove!” he repeated to himself several times, as though it seemed to find a singular response somewhere in the cells of his brain. Oh! could it be possible that his name was the same as that of the mysterious gentleman?
The keen-eyed lawyer knew instinctively what must be passing in his young mind, for he shook his head seriously.
“It may be just possible, Ralph, but until you hear what this other party has to say I wouldn’t build up too many hopes in that direction. What I have to tell you will not put you in possession of the positive facts. But to resume. This gentleman first of all asked me if, in the line of my business, I would undertake a little charitable work for him, and I, of course, said I was there for any position of trust connected with estates or otherwise; for you know, Frank, that much of my income consists of remuneration received from the care of property, as I am what is called an estate lawyer.
“Well, he told me that he had had a dear friend who had died in abject poverty years back, and left a boy who had been taken to the poorhouse away up in the country. The truth had only come to him of late, and he wanted to do something for that lad, but secretly, so that his name might never be known in connection with the matter.”
Ralph gripped the hand of Frank convulsively at hearing this; but he did not utter one word, only kept his glowing eyes fixed upon the lawyer’s sympathetic face.
“Upon investigating he had found that the lad had been taken into their home by a couple named West, living in the village of Scardale. He also seemed to know that the boy was keenly desirous of securing an education, from which he was now debarred by the lack of means of his supposed parents.
“And so after binding me to secrecy he explained his plan of action. I was to act as his intermediary, sending a stated sum the first of every month, and never letting a single hint fall as to whence it came. Sitting there at my typewriter, Mr. Musgrove himself wrote those few lines accompanying the first remittance. And I have never seen him since that day, though I learned he was in Europe traveling with a widowed sister.”
Ralph sighed heavily.