"I didn't want to offend the old gentleman, for he was a good customer, so I told him if he would send me a sheet of the foolscap which I had sold him before, I felt sure that I could match it exactly. I meant to give him what I had in stock, for I knew it was exactly the same, but I thought this would satisfy and pacify him. Well, he came round after that, and said he knew I always did the best I could for him, and he told me he would slip it into an envelope as soon as he got home and send it to me by post. On Thursday the letter arrived, but I was from home, and my wife was away too. I've only got a young assistant, and he did not like to open my letters, so there it remained on my desk until I got home to-day."

"And then you opened it?"

"Yes, and found inside, not the sheet of foolscap as I expected, but a letter evidently intended for you, sir. It begins, 'My dear Ken,' and it ends 'Your loving Father.' I haven't read it, sir, I assure you. I wouldn't do such a thing, and I've brought it at once to you. Do you think he can have put it in the wrong envelope? Have you found any other envelope containing a blank sheet of foolscap paper?"

"Yes, I have," said Captain Fortescue, "and have been extremely puzzled by it, for my father expressly told me that he had written a letter which he particularly wished me to receive."

"Then I am only too glad to restore it to you, sir," said Makepeace, as he handed the envelope to him. "And now, sir, I will bid you good evening."

Captain Fortescue thanked him for taking the trouble to come up at once to see him, and assured him that the information which he had given him was an intense relief to his mind.

As soon as he was alone, he unfolded the letter which had at last come into his possession. His hand trembled as he did so, and as he wondered what disclosure it would make to him.

Yes, there was his father's uneven writing. Some of the capitals were printed, others written in the ordinary way. He began at once to read it. It was dated Wednesday, December 18, and ran as follows:

"MY DEAR KEN,
"I was glad to get your letter, and hope as this will find you well as it leaves me very middling, and Cholmondeley has given me a tonic, so hope soon to be better. There is something as I think you ought to be told, as it will come more easy to you if things goes wrong, as it seems likely they will. I have had a letter from Berkinshaw, a friend of mine in London, and he has found out that a certain concern, what I put my money in, is getting shaky and not likely to pay. So I'm going to sell out to-morrow, unless I hear better news from him by the morning post, and if I do sell out, I shan't be so flush of money by a long chalk, and that will mean I can't send you such a big allowance as you have been having. I thought it was better as I should tell you, in case you might be disappointed when I send your next cheque. Go easy then, and don't outrun the constable till you hear again from—
"Your loving father,
"JOSEPH FORTESCUE."

And that was all! There was not a word more! It all seemed such past history now. And moreover his father had told him a great deal more than this letter contained. Why, then, was he so anxious for him to receive it? What did he mean by saying that he hoped it would put him right, and that he was to follow it up? Could his father simply have meant that this letter would prove that, whatever roguery there might be in connection with the Brazil Mining Company, his son knew nothing at all about the concern, and could not therefore be held in any way responsible? Yet who would ever imagine, for a moment, that he was implicated in his father's business transactions, which were done when he was absent from home, and of which he could easily prove that he was in total ignorance?