were you born?"

"Both of us at San Gregorio, which is in the San Jose province of
Argentina, north of Monte Video."

"Your father was in business there?"

"He was in business in the export trade, Mr. Spargo. There's no secret
about that. He exported all sorts of things to England and to
France--skins, hides, wools, dried salts, fruit. That's how he made his
money."

"You don't know how long he'd been there when you were born?"

"No."

"Was he married when he went out there?"

"No, he wasn't. We do know that. He's told us the circumstances of his
marriage, because they were romantic. When he sailed from England to
Buenos Ayres, he met on the steamer a young lady who, he said, was like
himself, relationless and nearly friendless. She was going out to
Argentina as a governess. She and my father fell in love with each
other, and they were married in Buenos Ayres soon after the steamer
arrived."

"And your mother is dead?"

"My mother died before we came to England. I was eight years old, and
Jessie six, then."

"And you came to England--how long after that?"

"Two years."

"So that you've been in England ten years. And you know nothing
whatever of your father's past beyond what you've told me?"

"Nothing--absolutely nothing."

"Never heard him talk of--you see, according to your account, your
father was a man of getting on to forty when he went out to Argentina.
He must have had a career of some sort in this country. Have you never
heard him speak of his boyhood? Did he never talk of old times, or that
sort of thing?"

"I never remember hearing my father speak of any period antecedent to
his marriage," replied Evelyn.

"I once asked him a question about his childhood." said Jessie. "He
answered that his early days had not been very happy ones, and that he
had done his best to forget them. So I never asked him anything again."

"So that it really comes to this," remarked Spargo. "You know nothing
whatever about your father, his family, his fortunes, his life, beyond
what you yourselves have observed since you were able to observe?
That's about it, isn't it?"

"I should say that that is exactly it," answered Evelyn.

"Just so," said Spargo. "And therefore, as I told your sister the other
day, the public will say that your father has some dark secret behind
him, and that Marbury had possession of it, and that your father killed
him in order to silence him. That isn't my view. I not only believe
you