He pushed a chair into it, sat down, and opened first the
packet that he knew had come from his uncle. He broke the seal and
read two pages of Mr. Touris in a mood of anger. There were rumors--.
True it was that Ian had now his own fortune, had it at least until he
lost it and his life together in some mad, unlawful business! But let
him not look longer to be heir of Archibald Touris! Withdraw at once
from ill company, political or other, and return to Scotland, or at
least to England, or take the consequences! The letter bore date the
first week of December. It had been long in passing from hand to hand
in a troubled, warring world. Ian Rullock, fathoms deep in the
present business, held in a web made by many lines of force, both
thick and thin, refolded the paper and made to put it into his
pocketbook, then bethinking himself, tore it instead into small pieces
and, rising, dropped these into a brazier where burned a little
charcoal. He would carry nothing with his proper name upon it. Coming
back to the chair in the sunshine, he sat for a moment with his eyes
upon a gray huddle of roofs visible through the window. Then he broke
the seal and unfolded the letter superscribed in Alexander's strong
writing.
There were hardly six lines. And they did not tell of how discovery
had been made, nor why, nor when.
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