It was in the well remembered hand-writing of his mother, and commenced, “Dear, dearest Reginald.”  After this followed expressions of endearment no woman might address except to an affianced lover, or the husband of her choice; and his heart sickened while he read.  Scarcely, however, had he scanned half a dozen lines, when it occurred to him he was violating some secret of his parents; and, discontinuing the perusal with an effort, he prepared to acquit himself of his mission.

On raising his eyes from the paper he was startled by the appearance of his father, who, with a stern brow and a quivering lip, stood a few paces from the table, apparently too much overcome by his indignation to be able to utter a sentence.

Charles de Haldimar felt all the awkwardness of his position.  Some explanation of his conduct, however, was necessary; and he stammered forth the fact of the portrait having riveted his attention, from its striking resemblance to that in his sister’s possession.

“And to what do these letters bear resemblance?” demanded the governor, in a voice that trembled in its attempt to be calm, while he fixed his penetrating eye on that of his son.  “They, it appears, were equally objects of attraction with you.”

“The letters were in the hand-writing of my mother; and I was irresistibly led to glance at one of them,” replied the youth, with the humility of conscious wrong.  “The action was involuntary, and no sooner committed than repented of.  I am here, my father, on a mission of importance, which must account for my presence.”

“A mission of importance!” repeated the governor, with more of sorrow than of anger in the tone in which he now spoke.  “On what mission are you here, if it be not to intrude unwarrantably on a parent’s privacy?”

The young officer’s cheek flushed high, as he proudly answered:—­“I was sent by Captain Blessington, sir, to take your orders in regard to an Indian who is now without the fort under somewhat extraordinary circumstances, yet evidently without intention of hostility.  It is supposed he bears some message from my brother.”

The tone of candour and offended pride in which this formal announcement of duty was made seemed to banish all suspicion from the mind of the governor; and he remarked, in a voice that had more of the kindness that had latterly distinguished his address to his son, “Was this, then, Charles, the only motive for your abrupt intrusion at this hour?  Are you sure no inducement of private curiosity was mixed up with the discharge of your duty, that you entered thus unannounced?  You must admit, at least, I found you employed in a manner different from what the urgency of your mission would seem to justify.”

There was lurking irony in this speech; yet the softened accents of his father, in some measure, disarmed the youth of the bitterness he would have flung into his observation,—­“That no man on earth, his parent excepted, should have dared to insinuate such a doubt with impunity.”