'That the person who passes as your grandson is not your grandson at all!'
'What—how—who the devil is he then?'
'The son of a Miss MacIan who married a Mr. Shafto Gyle.'
'D—n the name! Then who and where is my grandson and heir?'
'One who was lately or is now serving as a soldier in Zululand.'
'My God! and you tell me all this now—now?'
'When Lennard Melfort lay dying at Revelstoke he entrusted the proofs of his only son's birth with his older nephew, Shafto, who, with amazing cunning, used them to usurp his rights and position. I blame myself much. I should have made closer inquiries at the time; but the documents seemed all and every way to the point, and I could not doubt the handwriting or the signatures of your poor dead son. The result, however, has rather stunned me.'
'And, d—n it, Kippilaw, it rather stuns me!' exclaimed Lord Fettercairn, in high wrath. 'May it not be a mistake, this last idea?'
'No—everything is too well authenticated.'
'But, Kippilaw,' said Lord Fettercairn, after a pause, caused by dire perplexity, 'we had the certificate of birth.'