“I do, sir. It is certainly your property.”
Captain Rudstone took a small key from his pocket, and knelt beside the trunk. He fitted the key to the lock, turned it, and threw open the lid, revealing to our eager gaze some articles of clothing, and a few letters and papers tied in a packet. He opened the bunch, selected one of the letters, and handed it to the law clerk.
With trembling hands Christopher Burley took the inclosure from the envelope, and glanced over it briefly.
“Written in 1785,” he exclaimed, “to Osmund Maiden by his mother, when he was at the University of Oxford! Gentleman, my quest is at an end. I have found the missing—” His face suddenly turned deathly pale. He staggered, and would have fallen, but for Macdonald, who caught and supported him. “It is nothing,” he muttered faintly. “The excitement—the shock; I shall be better in a moment.”
Just then I happened to glance at Flora, and was startled by her appearance. She was gazing at the letter, which was still in the law clerk’s hand; her cheeks were deeply flushed, and her expression was one of incredulous amazement.
“What is the matter?” I said anxiously.
“Don’t be foolish, Denzil!” she replied, turning her eyes in another direction, and making an effort to speak calmly. “I thought I saw—No, I was mistaken.”
The words were so low that none heard them but myself. I attached no meaning to them at the time, thinking that she was slightly unnerved by the dramatic scene we were witnessing.
But Captain Rudstone—as I remembered afterward—seemed to notice Flora’s agitation. At all events he quickly recovered the letter from the law clerk and restored it to the packet. That he tossed into the trunk, closing and locking the lid, and putting the key in his pocket. Then he rose to his feet.
“I think,” he said, “that I have fully proved my claim”—to which undeniable statement Macdonald and I nodded assent.