What foolish words were these? I could only stare, dazed and speechless, at those around me—at the mocking face of Captain Rudstone. And he had called me Earl of Heathermere!
“It is true!” cried Flora, breaking the spell of silence. “I knew it.”
“It is madness!” shouted Christopher Burley, whose countenance had turned the color of Parchmont.
“Look at the papers, Carew,” suggested Macdonald.
I examined them with shaking fingers, having first let go of Flora. One was the certificate of marriage of Bertram Carew with the daughter of the factor of Fort Beaver; another was the proof of a birth—my birth. I glanced at the third and largest, and I caught my breath as I saw the first few words. I read on—read to the very end—like a man in a dream. Then I handed the document to the factor.
“I can hardly realize it,” I said, “but it is all there—written plainly. Read it aloud!”
Macdonald did so, and those in the room, Captain Rudstone not excepted, listened with rapt attention. I need not give the contents of the paper word for word, but it meant that my father, Bertram Carew, had been Osmund Maiden—that I was Osmund Maiden’s son and heir. It was all revealed in the letter, which was addressed to me, and was written by my father. In it he told of the family quarrel in England years before, of his voyage to the Canadas in quest of adventure and fortune, of his meeting and subsequent friendship with a young man named Myles Rudstone, of the dispute in the Montreal gambling den, and the shooting of the Frenchman Henri Salvat.
Then followed an account of the flight and journeying of the two—Osmund Maiden and Myles Rudstone—how they traveled in haste from Montreal to Fort Garry, from the fort to the northern wilderness, where they were attacked by a party of treacherous Indians. My father was struck down and left for dead, and was found by the factor of Fort Beaver, who nursed him until he was recovered. Of Myles Rudstone no trace was discovered, and he was believed to have been carried off a prisoner by the Indians. The conclusion of the narrative dealt with my father’s subsequent life up to shortly before his death. From the time he met the factor he took the name of Bertrand Carew, and carefully preserved the secret of his identity. He did this, of course, through fear of the consequences of the Montreal brawl, the result of which he could never have learned. There was also in the letter a reference to the cryptogram at Fort Beaver, and to the receipt for the trunk left at Fort Garry. I omit some personal instructions that would be of less interest to the reader.
Macdonald, having finished reading the paper aloud, returned it to me.
“Bless me, I don’t know what to make of it all!” he exclaimed. “It is bewildering; it beats anything that one reads in fiction!”