Gaston felt that here was something.

These hours spent among old papers had given him strange sensations, had, on the one hand, shown him his heritage; but had also filled him with the spirit of that by-gone time.

He had grown further away from the present.

He had played his part as in a drama: his real life was in the distant past and out in the land of the heathen.
Now he took out a bundle of papers with broken seals, and wound with a faded tape.

He turned the rich important parchments over in his hands.
He saw his own name on the outside of one: "Sir Gaston Robert Belward." And there was added: "Bart." He laughed.