of a dog, betrayed it--and what has become of her daughter and yours?
Oh, cursed of the gods, thou knowest these things as thou knowest the
two marks of the African spear on thy left arm--but thou dost not know
the depth of infamy which thy sin dug for thine own son to fall into."

As he was saying this Koda Bux backed close to the door, locked it
behind him, and took the key out.

Bad as he was, the last words of Koda Bux hit Sir Reginald harder even
than the others. His son, the heir to his name and fortune, what had he
to do with that old sin of his committed before he was born?

"You must be mad or opium-drunk, Koda Bux," he whispered hoarsely, "to
talk like that. Yes, it is the 28th of June, and I have two spear marks
on my arm--but I am rich, I can make you a prince in your own land.
Come, you know something about me. That is why you came here; but what
has my son Reginald to do with it? If I have sinned, what is that to
him?"

"In the book of the God of the Christians," said Koda Bux, very slowly,
and approaching him with an almost hypnotic stare in his eyes, "in that
book it is written that the chief God of the Christians will visit the
sins of the fathers upon the children. This woman bore you a daughter;
your lawful wife bore you a son. The woman who was once the wife of
Maxwell Sahib was a drunkard, and now she's a mad-woman. Your own wife
bore you a son, and in London your daughter and your son, not knowing
each other, came together. Your daughter was what the good English call
an outcast, and, knowing nothing of your sin, they lived--"

"God in heaven! can that be true?" murmured Sir Reginald, sinking back
against the mantel-piece just as he was going-to pull the bell.

"No, it can't be! Koda Bux, you are lying; no such horrible thing as
that could be."

"My gods are not thine, if thou hast any, oh, unsainted one!" said Koda
Bux, "but, like the gods of the Christians, they can avenge when the cup
of sin is full. Yes, it is true. Your son and your daughter--your son,
who is now married to her who should have been the wife of Vane Sahib.
There is no doubt, and it can be proved. But that is only a part of your
punishment, destroyer of happiness and afflictor of many lives. That is
a thought which thou wilt take to Hell with thee, and it shall eat into
thy soul for ever and ever, and when I have sent thee to Hell I will
tell thy son and the woman he stole from Vane Sahib when he persuaded
him to take str