Then came Cheyne's letter to May, written out for him by Dr. Rowland.
"Doctor Rowland will tell you that I am rapidly getting better, and that in a few days I may hope to be able to get up and about. For the first time, this morning they allowed me to look through the letters lying here for me, among which were two from your own good hand, dear, and two more from other sources. These four are all that I need mention now; and of your own you will, for an obvious reason, see why I must confine myself to thanks and good wishes, and telling you how glad I was to hear that you and your kind aunt are so well. I pray you may both continue so.
"One of them is from an old friend of mine of whom you have often heard me speak, and whom you met more than once--Edward Graham, the artist, who, as I told you, has been painting a picture under Anerly Bridge, in Devonshire. This letter is accompanied by a story which goes back to the year before I was born, and tells of a certain marriage in that village between George Temple Cheyne and Harriet Mansfield.
"The second letter is from Mrs. Mansfield of Wyechester, in which she tells me that she is the mother of the Harriet Mansfield married at Anerly, and that I am the only child of that Anerly marriage.
"And now, May dearest, prepare yourself for a most astounding discovery.
"The letter from my grandmother contained several other papers, among them one in my father's and one in my mother's writing. I will not plague you with details, but the facts are simply these:
"My mother met my father by accident, and ran away with him. She thought him a plain gentleman, and for two reasons he wished to keep their marriage private for a while. The first of these was that a rich relative had promised to hand him over a large fortune if he did not marry up to a certain age--an age he had not then reached, though he should reach it in a short time. The second was that a number of men to whom he owed money knew of this, and would have been down on him at once if they suspected him of having married.
"Accordingly the secret was kept, and the married pair went away on the Continent. Here my father caught sound of a rumour that his creditors were on the look-out for him; and, leaving instructions with his wife to remain in Brussels, he went away. She never saw her husband again; and when dying she told the nurse to bring me to my grandmother Mansfield, at Wyechester, at the same time giving in charge to the good woman, for my grandmother, some papers my father had left behind him, with instructions that they were not to be opened until a certain future time. My grandmother provided for me secretly, and had me ultimately put into the publishing house in London.