I have borne to you for her sake."

While I read this long and strange letter, Strahan sat by my side,
covering his face with his hands, and weeping with honest tears for the
man whose death had made him powerful and rich.

"You will undertake the trust ordained to me in this letter," said he,
struggling to compose himself. "You will read and edit this memoir; you
are the very man he himself would have selected. Of your honour and
humanity there can be no doubt, and you have studied with success the
sciences which he specifies as requisite for the discharge of the task he
commands."

At this request, though I could not be wholly unprepared for it, my first
impulse was that of a vague terror. It seemed to me as if I were becoming
more and more entangled in a mysterious and fatal web. But this impulse
soon faded in the eager yearnings of an ardent and irresistible curiosity.

I promised to read the manuscript, and in order that I might fully imbue
my mind with the object and wish of the deceased, I asked leave to make a
copy of the letter I had just read. To this Strahan readily assented, and
that copy I have transcribed in the preceding pages.

I asked Strahan if he had yet found the manuscript. He said, "No, he had
not yet had the heart to inspect the papers left by the deceased. He
would now do so. He should go in a day or two to Derval Court, and reside
there till the murderer was discovered, as doubtless he soon must be
through the vigilance of the police. Not till that discovery was made
should Sir Philip's remains, though already placed in their coffin, be
consigned to the family vault."