yship," said the butler, "I cannot find the key. Shall I send
for a locksmith?"

"Oh, no," said Lady Mary, "do not take the trouble. I have letters to
write, and do not wish to be disturbed until my mother returns."

"Very good, your ladyship," returned the butler, and he walked away.

"A locksmith!" said Lady Mary, looking across the table at me.

"Love laughs at them," said I.

Lady Mary smiled very sweetly, but shook her head.

"This is not a time for laughter," she said, "but for seriousness.
Now, I cannot risk your staying here longer, so will tell you what I
have to say as quickly as possible. Your repeatedly interrupted
declaration I take for truth, because the course of true love never
did run smooth. Therefore, if you want me, you must keep the papers."

At this I hastily took the bundle from the table and thrust it in my
pocket, which action made Lady Mary smile again.

"Have you read them?" she asked.

"I have not."

"Do you mean to say you have carried these papers about for so long
and have not read them?"

"I had no curiosity concerning them," I replied. "I have something
better to look at," I went on, gazing across at her; "and when that is
not with me the memory of it is, and it's little I care for a pack of
musty papers and what's in them."

"Then I will tell you what they are," said Lady Mary. "There are in
that packet the title-deeds to great estates, the fairest length of
land that lies under the sun in Sussex. There is also a letter written
by my father's own hand, giving the property to your father."

"But he did not mean my father to keep it," said I.

"No, he did not. He feared capture, and knew the ransom would be heavy
if they found evidence of property upon him. Now all these years he
has been saying nothing, but collecting the revenues of this estate
and using them, while another man had the legal right to it."

"Still he has but taken what was his own," said I, "and my father
never disputed that, always intending to come over to England and
return the papers to the Earl; but he got lazy-like, by sitting at his
own fireside, and seldom went farther abroad than to the house of the
priest; but his last injunctions to me were to see that the Earl got
his papers, and indeed he would have had them long since if he had but
treated me like the son of an old friend."

"Did your father mention that the Earl would give you any reward for
returning his property to him?"

"He did not