ith tears on her cheek,
saying: "No, Mr. Duke. He was good to me before folk; but he was
very hard sometimes."

"And your mother--I mean Mrs. Kinlay--was she good to you?"

"She has aye been good to me; but not like a mother," said Thora,
as plaintively as a lost lamb.

"And you never suspected that she was not your true mother?" asked
Mr. Duke.

"Not till Colin Lothian spoke to me about it."

"There is certainly some mystery about all this," said the bailie,
turning to Andrew Drever. "But it remains with us to communicate
with this Mr. Quendale, if he is still alive."

"He is not alive," said Andrew, with conviction.

"Oh, then, you know something of him?"

"Yes," said Mr. Drever; and here he turned to me and asked me, to
my surprise, to relate all that had occurred during my solitary
voyage in the Falcon. I did not see what possible application this
could have to the case, or how it could be connected with the
mystery of Thora's parentage. But I related my adventure.

I told how David Flett had been knocked overboard, and of the mate
and Jerry leaving me alone on the schooner; of my difficult
navigation of her, and of my discovery of the Pilgrim. Here the
schoolmaster called the magistrate to give attention, and I guessed
that it must be with the ill-fated ship that the mystery was to be
in some way cleared. I told how I saw the supercargo seated at the
table in the cabin, and how I had read the last entry in his log
book.

Andrew Drever opened the book, which was before him, and passed it
to Mr. Duke, saying: "You will observe, sir, that the last date
written here is January, 1831. Thirteen years ago."

"Thirteen years ago!" exclaimed Mr. Duke, turning over the pages.
"Ah! now I begin to see your application. Go on, Halcro."

I then spoke of finding the charts, and described how the Pilgrim
had touched at Kirkwall.

"She called at Kirkwall to put me ashore for hospital," interposed
Peter Brown.

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Duke. "And are you going to say that this
Pilgrim was the vessel in which Mr. Quendale sailed for
Copenhagen?"

"Copenhagen was the port she sailed for--calling at Akureyri, in
Iceland," quietly explained the dominie. "Go on, Halcro."

I then described the captain's room, and told of the man I had seen
lying dead in the sleeping bunk. I spoke of the diamond ring.

"Have you got that ring?" asked the magistrate.

"Yes," I said, feeling in my waistcoat pocket and producing it from