Arlbororough Castle,
August 4, 184—.

I have now to record one of the most interesting events of my life, and one
which has been to me the cause of infinite happiness and gratitude. In a
word, I have been recognized and acknowledged by my father! His reason at
my interview returned, and — But I anticipate the narrative of the circumstances,
and will at once proceed to relate them as I promised in my last
letter.

It will be remembered that the time set for me to see him was at the hour
of sunset, at which season it had been long his custom to leave his private
chamber adjoining the cenotaph and kneel beside it as if in worship. As the
moment approached in which I was to make this trial, in its results so interesting
to me, I became greatly agitated, and feared that my feelings would so
far overcome me as to render it impossible to go through with the painful
scene I had to enter upon. At length the shadows of the setting day began to
gather upon the woodlands, and the last lingering glow of sunlight fade from
the edges of the hills, and the moment of trial was at hand!

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His Grace came to me and taking me by the hand embraced me like a father,
and then, attended by Mr. Beufort, we left my chamber and proceeded
towards the hall of the cenotaph. At the outer door the two gentlemen remained,
and opening the door I entered alone, leaving it ajar, that they might
be spectators of what ensued. The saloon was unoccupied, for it wanted yet
three minutes to the vesper hour. I had intentionally come in before him, that
I might better compose myself for the part I had to act in this interesting affair.
With feelings that I find it impossible to describe I slowly approached the cenotaph,
and kneeling reverently by its side, I gazed with awe and filial tenderness
upon the marble resemblance of her who I believed to be my mother. As
I gazed I insensibly forgot my object in being there, and with tears in my
eyes and clasped hands I let my thoughts wander to the past days of her unhappiness,
and in recalling these I then ceased to regret that she had passed
away to scenes of unalloyed enjoyment. In my imagination also, I began to
invest the white, cold and immoveable marble with the hues and motion of life,
till I seemed to be kneeling by the side of her who only slept, and whom a
touch, a whisper from her child would awaken.—Impressed with this feeling,
I impulsively extended my hand and laid it lightly upon her clasped fingers,
and said in a voice that startled myself for its depth and intensity of mingled
love and grief,

`Mother! mother, arise! It is your son who calls you!'

At this moment I heard a step, and looking up beheld gazing down upon
me across the cenotaph, Lord Ferdinand! He stood looking calm, sorrowful,
and yet fearfully stern, his tall person and dignified air giving him an appearance
at once lofty and commanding. I was instantly recalled to a sense of the
task before me, and my self-possession returned. I saw his eye was fixed upon
me with a look of mingled wonder and anger. He surveyed me, as I kneeled,
for some moments in silence! At length he addressed me in a voice that
thrilled to my soul—for nature told me that it was the voice of my father:

`Who art thou that darest to kneel by this sacred shrine? Who art thou
that callest upon the dead? Speak! This spot is sacred, and he who profanes
it must purify it with his blood! Say, who art thou?'

`Father!' I answered, scarcely able to articulate the word from the strength
of my emotions, which well nigh suffocated me.

`Father!' he repeated slowly; and thrice he repeated the word, each time
with increased bitterness. `Yes, I had a father! But I will not tell to strange
ears the tale! No! I had a wife, too! Oh, such a wife! Angels did love
her while yet she lived, and angels are her companions now!' And elevating
his finger he remained a few moments silently and impressively pointing heavenward.
All at once he cried in a voice of thunder,

`But who art thou that darest to kneel here?'

`Her child!'

`Her child! Ha, ha, ha!' and he laughed wildly and fiercely. The expression
of his features was truly terrible. `Yes, she had a child! But — but —

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Oh, my poor mad brain! Oh, thou Duke! Thou — but hist! he is my father!
I may not speak against him. She lies here now! Oh how full of gentleness
and joy was thy spirit, my beloved! How soft with love beamed thy
eyes upon me, how like chords of a well-tuned harp my heart-strings sounded
the touches of thy gentle words! But thou livest now only in memory!'

`She was very lovely, my lord?' I said, seeing him pause and gaze with sorrowful
tenderness upon the beauteous features of the marble face, wishing to
draw him to converse with me.

`Her countenance, fair as thou seest it there, was but a rude mirror imperfectly
reflecting the divine beauty of her soul!'

`My lord, you said but now she was a mother! What became of her child?

`Did I say she was a mother?' he cried hoarsely. `Hush then, and do not
repeat it! It must be kept a secret! The dukedom rests upon it! Aye it
does hang upon it! Be silent, if thou knowest it! By and by he will be
found, and then upon his noble brow I will place the coronet of his house!
But hush! It must not be breathed to the winds! She who lies there, and I
are sole keepers of the secret!'

The loud, cautious, impressive voice in which he spoke this thrilled to my
soul. Every word was overheard by the Duke and Mr. Beufort, for though he
spoke in a whisper, it was singularly deep and distinct, reaching the remotest
corner of the saloon. While he was speaking he came round the cenotaph
and stood by my side. I still knelt; for in such a presence! my mad father
and my mother's shade! I could only kneel in awe.

`I will keep the secret, my lord!'

`I know that you may be trusted. I know thee not, nor why thou art here;
but there is a spirit looks out through thine eyes that I love!'

`Where, my lord, is your child?' I asked, with as much composure and firmness
as I could command.

`Breathe it not above thy breath!' he said, seating himself upon the pedestal
of the cenotaph and laying his hand impressively upon my arm, while his
eyes surveyed me with a peculiar intensity mingled with kindness that seemed
to me to be parental, though he himself was unconscious of the source of this
regard. `I had a boy! A brave, beautiful boy! He was an infant! I saw
him only as an infant, but he is gone! gone! gone too?' This was uttered
with the most touching melancholy.

`Dead?' I asked with my heart on my lips.

`Dead! Yes, dead,' he replied, speaking to himself rather than to me. `Are
not the lost dead? Yes, he is dead, for I know not where he is! My poor,
cracked brain! I cannot guide its thoughts or memories! When I would think,
all becomes chaos! Oh, if I could remember where! I should not be mad.'

He rose up and walked to and fro before the shrine, his hands clasped across
his forehead, and his face eloquent with the anguish of the bitterest woe. I
rose, also, and gently placed my hand upon his arm: for I knew I held the key—
the talisman—which if properly used would unlock the store-house of

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memory. I felt that if he could once be brought to a certain definite point of past
time so as to recognise it, he could then be led down to the present moment,
and reason would once more recover her lost path.

`My lord,' I said, in the kindest tones I could assume, `you have been
pleased to regard me with favor! Will you suffer me to hold a few words of
conversation with you?'

He looked me steadfastly in the face and then smiling with an affection in
his glance that brought tears to my eyes, answered,

`Yes, I will listen to you, for you speak to me in the tones of her I loved!
Speak! but I will gaze on you, for you look upon me with the eyes of my beloved!
'

`My lord,' I said, `I will speak of your son.'

`Softly, though,' he said, with an air of fear. `Softly; for this must be
known only to us three! Did I not tell thee how the Dukedom hangs upon it!
No, it must not be known! But I care not for the Dukedom! I did once, and
did wickedly by deserting my poor boy! hoping to get him again; but God
has punished me in taking away my memory. Dost thou know, young man, I
am mad for the cause that I have forgotten where we left our boy! Sometimes
I fancy 'twas at an Inn in the vallies of Switzerland; then I think 'twas in an
auberge in the South of France! Then again I am persuaded he was drowned
in the Atlantic.'

He said this with a painful expression of perplexity and grief upon his haggard
yet noble countenance.

`You crossed the Atlantic then, my lord?' I asked eagerly.

`I forget—methinks we were cast away and lost on the voyage! I remember
a great storm! Yet, no! if we had been lost I had not been here, you know,
nor she there.' [It will have been observed that in alluding to his wife, that he
invariably seemed to regard her as actually before him in the cenotaph] `But
my poor brain wanders!' and he placed his hand to his brow.

`My lord,' I said taking his hand and seating him upon the pedestal, `I will
tell you a tale.'

`Marry, I should be right glad to listen! I could listen and look in thine
eyes forever.'

`In America, my lord, twenty-six years ago, there drew up to a small inn
not far from Boston, a carriage, containing a gentleman and his wife, both in
mourning. Does my lord listen?'

I received no reply, but with both hands he laid a firm grasp upon my wrist
and rivetted his eyes earnestly upon my face.

`The carriage was yellow and driven by a negro man! They alighted, this
gentleman and lady, who seemed overcome with grief. They entered the inn
and were followed to a distant chamber by the negro, who carried beneath his
arm a covered basket, about the safety of which the lady seemed to be very
watchful, giving the man many an anxious and careful caution. They remained
an hour or two and then ordering their carriage, though it was already

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sun-set, they left the inn, taking the basket with them. But now comes the
point of my story, my lord. An hour after their departure, the landlady hearing
the cry of an infant followed the sound and entering the room they had
left, found lying upon the bed—'

`A child? An infant? a boy?—my boy! Her son!' cried out lord Ferdidinand,
catching the words from my mouth and speaking in a loud and terribly
excited tone, a tone in which the wildest joy was mingled with trembling
hopes. I had watched the glad dawning of intelligence as I spoke, diffusing
slowly yet surely, the light of intelligence over the night of reason and oblivion.
I had seen with joy, the progressive unfolding of the portals of his memory,
and anticipated the certain recognition which followed.

`It was a male infant, my lord, and doubtless left by travellers. In its
hands it held grasped this Silver Bottle.'

As I said this I drew from my bosom the bottle and placed it in his hands.
He looked at it a few moments with an indescribable expression, or rather
crowd of expressions upon his face; for his countenance underwent surprising
changes as he held it. Slowly he sank upon his knees and lifting his hands
to heaven he bowed his head with a look of inexpressible gratitude upon his
breast, and said in a voice I shall never forget,

`God, I thank thee?'

He remained silent a few moments, and then rising turned to me and said
in words broken by emotion—

`And the child—the child—the infant? Did—did—it live?'

`It did, my lord—it lives still!'

`Still! Oh, tell me where! tell me that I may fly to him! He is my child!
He is her son! Heaven has sent thee here to throw the light of memory upon
my shattered brain, and I once more behold the past. That gentleman and lady
were myself and she who sleeps there! We did wickedly in deserting our
little one, but we knew in whose kindly hands we left it, hoping in a few short
months to have it restored! But the wickedness of those who compelled us
to this step is greater far. And I, in my ambition, did urge thee to it, gentle
wife! But I know thy gentle spirit forgave me ere it fled!' He paused, overcome
with inward feelings. At length he raised his head and said earnestly,

`You tell me my boy lives!'

`He does, my lord!' I answered scarcely audible, and trembling with the
deepest emotion.

`Where? I will fly to embrace him. I will kneel at his feet and implore
his pardon. Tell me where my boy is: my child. That I may fly to his embrace!
'

`Here, my noble lord! here, my father! Behold! your son kneels to you for
your blessing!'

He gazed upon me for a moment with the light of instinctive recognition
growing brighter and clearer in his parental eyes and then, with a loud cry,
cast himself into my arms.

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