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298 not flinch. Understand, I'm not blaming dad. Whatever it was, it was something he couldn't help, I'll warrant. But what it was I've got to know. Will you get it, please? It's in your safe, you know."

John Pendleton rose at once.

"I'll get it," he said. Three minutes later it lay in Jimmy's hand; but Jimmy held it out at once.

"I would rather you read it, sir, please. Then tell me."

"But, Jimmy, I—very well." With a decisive gesture John Pendleton picked up a paper-cutter, opened the envelope, and pulled out the contents. There was a package of several papers tied together, and one folded sheet alone, apparently a letter. This John Pendleton opened and read first. And as he read, Jimmy, tense and breathless, watched his face. He saw, therefore, the look of amazement, joy, and something else he could not name, that leaped into John Pendleton's countenance.

"Uncle John, what is it? What is it?" he demanded.

"Read it—for yourself," answered the man, thrusting the letter into Jimmy's outstretched hand. And Jimmy read this:

"The enclosed papers are the legal proof that my boy Jimmy is really James Kent, son of John Kent, who married Doris Wetherby, daughter of William Wetherby of Boston. There is also a letter in which I explain to my boy why I have kept him from his mother's family all these years. If this packet is opened by him at thirty years of age, he will read this