"
Brandon laid the letter down, and took a moment for thought, before he
could make up his mind to read it through. Some crime, some deep
disgrace, he perceived was about to be confided to him. With a hurried
sense of dislike and shrinking from acquaintance with it, he wondered
whether his own late mother had known anything of it, then whether he
was there called upon to divulge it now, and to act. If not, he argued
with himself, why was it to be confided to him?
Then he addressed himself to his task, and read the letter through,
coming to its last word only to be still more surprised, as he perceived
plainly that beyond what he could gather from those two short sentences
already quoted, nothing was confided or confessed, nothing at all--only
a request was made to him, and that very urgently and solemnly, but it
concerned not himself, but his young brother Valentine, for not content
with repudiating the family property for himself, the old father was
desirous, it was evident, through his step-son, to stand in the way and
bar his own son's very remote chance of inheriting it either.
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