discontented man, aspiring for something he has never been able to find.
Now the American, I am told, pretends that he has the clue which has
always been needed to make the secret available; the key whereby the lock
may be opened; the something that the lost son of the family carried away
with him, and by which through these centuries he has impeded the
progress of the race. And, wild as the story seems, he does certainly
seem to bring something that looks very like the proof of what he says."

"And what are those proofs?" inquired Middleton, wonder-stricken at the
strange reduplication of his own position and pursuits.

"In the first place," said the Master, "the English marriage-certificate
by a clergyman of that day in London, after publication of the banns,
with a reference to the register of the parish church where the marriage
is recorded. Then, a certified genealogy of the family in New England,
where such matters can be ascertained from town and church records, with
at least as much certainty, it would appear, as in this country. He has
likewise a manuscript in his ancestor's autograph, containing a brief
account of the events which banished him from his own country; the
circumstances which favored the idea that he had been slain, and which he
himself was willing should be received as a belief; the fortune that led
him to America, where he wished to found a new race wholly disconnected
with the past; and this manuscript he sealed up, with directions that it
should not be opened till two hundred years after his death, by which
time, as it was probable to conjecture, it would matter little to any
mortal whether the story was told or not. A whole generation has passed
since the time when the paper was at last unsealed and read, so long it
had no operation; yet now, at last, here comes the American, to disturb
the succession of an ancient family!"