She asked why.  He said he was there to explain; and expressed himself as feeling greatly relieved at having to open his business to her, because she would, doubtless, be best able to prepare her sister for the bad news that he was, unfortunately, obliged to bring.  The sudden faintness which overcame her, as he spoke those words, prevented her from addressing him in return.  He poured out some water for her from a bottle which happened to be standing on the table, and asked if he might depend on her fortitude.  She tried to say “Yes”; but the violent throbbing of her heart seemed to choke her.  He took a foreign newspaper from his pocket, saying that he was a secret agent of the French police—­that the paper was the Havre Journal, for the past week, and that it had been expressly kept from reaching the baron, as usual, through his (the agent’s) interference.  He then opened the newspaper, and begged that she would nerve herself sufficiently (for her sister’s sake) to read certain lines, which would give her some hint of the business that brought him there.  He pointed to the passage as he spoke.  It was among the “Shipping Entries,” and was thus expressed: 

“Arrived, the Berenice, from San Francisco, with a valuable cargo of hides.  She brings one passenger, the Baron Franval, of Chateau Franval, in Normandy.”

As Miss Welwyn read the entry, her heart, which had been throbbing violently but the moment before, seemed suddenly to cease from all action, and she began to shiver, though it was a warm June evening.  The agent held the tumbler to her lips, and made her drink a little of the water, entreating her very earnestly to take courage and listen to him.  He then sat down, and referred again to the entry, every word he uttered seeming to burn itself in forever (as she expressed it) on her memory and her heart.

He said:  “It has been ascertained beyond the possibility of doubt that there is no mistake about the name in the lines you have just read.  And it is as certain as that we are here, that there is only one Baron Franval now alive.  The question, therefore, is, whether the passenger by the Berenice is the true baron, or—­I beg you most earnestly to bear with me and to compose yourself—­or the husband of your sister.  The person who arrived last week at Havre was scouted as an impostor by the ladies at the chateau, the moment he presented himself there as the brother, returning to them after sixteen years of absence.  The authorities were communicated with, and I and my assistants were instantly sent for from Paris.

“We wasted no time in questioning the supposed impostor.  He either was, or affected to be, in a perfect frenzy of grief and indignation.  We just ascertained, from competent witnesses, that he bore an extraordinary resemblance to the real baron, and that he was perfectly familiar with places and persons in and about the chateau; we just ascertained that, and then proceeded to confer with the local