d the papers and letter reverently to one side, and I, who
had been reading over his shoulder, brushed impatiently at my eyes. (I
was not entirely a well man yet, remember!) Below the newspaper lay a
signed deed, formally conveying a parcel of twenty acres of land,
carefully measured and described, to Lockwood Lee Prynne, his heirs
and assigns, and all the rest of the legal jargon. This was hardly
burned at all.

Of the two slim packets of letters one was badly charred: parts of it
fell away in Roger's hands, as he carefully opened it. I cannot
transcribe them literally, or even to any great length, for they are
too sad, and no good end would be served by commemorating to what
extent that fierce furnace of the Civil War burned away the natural
ties of kindred and neighbour and home. Enough that the few remaining
members spared out of what must have been a small family cut
Margarita's father definitely off from them, in terms no man could
have tried with any self-respect to modify. His father, a Northerner,
who had identified himself since his Southern marriage with his wife's
interests and kinsfolk, had lost touch with his own people, and a few
death notices, slipped in among the letters, seemed to point to an
almost complete loneliness, which Roger afterward verified. The other
packet held two letters only, one in Italian (which language I
learned, after a fashion, in order to read it) the other in French.
The Italian letter was not only scorched badly, but so blistered--one
did not need to ask how--that parts were quite illegible. The writer,
a man, evidently, a young man, probably, conveyed in satire so keen, a
contempt so bitter, a hatred so remorseless, that it was difficult to
believe it a letter from a brother to his sister. Beneath the
polished, scornful sentences--vitriol to a tender young heart--surged
a tempest of primitive rage that thrust one back into the Renaissance,
with its daggers and its smiles. "_Let me tell you, then, once and for
all_," ran one sentence, breaking out fiercely, "_that there is but
one country on earth which can shelter you and that villain--his own!
There I scorn to put my foot or allow the foot of any member of your
family, but let him or his victim leave it--and so long as I live my
vengeance shall search you out and wipe out this insult to my house,
my country and my church!_" The opening page was missing and the last
one was badly burned, so we had absolutely no clue as to the f