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light and supreme happiness, he could do nothing but cry, cry, cry, and murmur his gratitude and thankfulness. But, after a time, he did recover himself; and then he became aware for the first time, as did the others, that a fourth party was present. This was Mate Storms, who suspected the situation before he was introduced to the happy captain of the _Polynesia_. Since they all had such an extraordinary story to relate, the captain had an equally remarkable one to tell them. The persistent and never-ending investigation which he set on foot concerning the lost Inez had resulted, not in finding her, but in unearthing her entire history. She was a native of the city of New York, and her father died there before she was a year old. A former suitor of her mother, angered because she would not become his wife, even after her husband was deceased, resorted to the atrocious revenge of stealing Inez when she was but an infant, and he hastened across the continent with her. When he had kept her there a brief time, he sought to open negotiations with the mother, with a view of delivering back her child on condition that the parent should become his wife; but he was shocked to learn that the poor, heartbroken mother had died from grief, and the child was upon his hands. This man finally married a woman in San Francisco, but neither of them could ever feel any affection for the little girl (whom, however, they treated quite fairly), and the wife insisted that she should be gotten rid of in some way. Through some whim or other, the abductor had always called her by her right name--Inez Hawthorne--and, seeing some mention of it in the newspapers, he resorted to the means which we described, at the opening of this story, for ridding himself forever of her. As soon as Inez was safely placed on the steamer, this wicked couple disappeared, and no further trace of them could be found. Captain Strathmore, who was anxious to punish them, believed they had left the country. Inez, therefore, was an orphan, and while a gentle sadness filled her affectionate heart--as she heard the particulars of her own history for the first time, and reflected upon that poor, heartbroken mother, who had gone to her rest long ago--she could not feel any poignant grief, for her memory of the lost one was too shadowy and faint. But she had found a home and friends for life. Abram Storms explained that he had met three English gentlemen who were
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