As I passed through the passage, an irresistible impulse of curiosity induced me to glance at the paper, which was unsealed, and my eye fell upon the following words, traced in characters of uncommon beauty and delicacy: "If Robert Moncton refuses to admit my claims, and to do me justice, I will expose his villainy, and his son's heartless desertion, to the world.
"A.

M." I had scarcely read the mysterious billet than I felt that I had done wrong.

I was humbled and abashed in my own eyes, and the riddle appeared as difficult of solution as ever.

My uncle's voice sounded as ominously in my ears as the stroke of a death-bell, as he called me sharply by name.

Hastily refolding the note, I went into his study, and placed it on the table before him, with an averted glance and trembling hand.