The packet, sealed and addressed to Mr. Kippilaw, though its contents were as yet unknown to him, seemed to corroborate the strange intelligence of Shafto; but the question naturally occurred to Florian, 'For what end or purpose had this lifelong mystery and change in their positions been brought about?'
He asked this of Shafto again and again.
'It seems we have been very curiously deluded,' said that personage, not daring to look the sorrowful Florian straight in the face, and pretended to be intent on stuffing his pipe.
'Deluded—how?'
'How often am I to tell you,' exclaimed Shafto, with petulance and assumed irritation, 'that the contents of this packet prove that I am the only son of Major Melfort (not MacIan at all), and that you—you——'
'What?'
'Are Florian Gyle, the nephew—adopted as a son. Mr. Kippilaw will tell you all about it.'
'And you, Shafto?' queried Florian, scarcely knowing, in his bewilderment, what he said.
'Mean to go in for my proper position—my title, and all that sort of thing, don't you see?'
'And act—how!'