I believe. In any event, the fortune was to be mine when I
reached the age of twenty-one, but each year the income, nearly
twenty-five thousand dollars, was to be paid to my stepfather as
trustee, to be safely invested by him. My mother's name was not
mentioned in the document, except once, to identify me as the
beneficiary. I can only add to this phase of the hateful conspiracy,
that for nineteen years my stepfather received this income, and that he
used it to establish his own fortune. By investing what was supposed to
be my money, he has won his own way to wealth.

"Mr. Banks decided that the operations were safest from this side of the
Atlantic. He and my mother took up their residence in New York, and it
has been their home ever since. He spent the first half year after your
suspected death in London, solely for the purpose of establishing
himself in Lord Brace's favour. Within a year after the death of Lord
Brace your father was killed by a poacher on the estate. He had but
lately returned from Egypt, and was in full control of the lands and
property attached to Brace Hall. If my stepfather had designs upon Brace
Hall, they failed, for the lands and the title went at once to your
father's cousin, Sir Harry Brace, the present lord.

"So much for the conditions in England then and now. I now return to
that part of the story which most interests and concerns you. My poor
mother was compelled, within a fortnight after we landed in New York, to
give up the dangerous infant who was always to hang like a cloud between
fortune and honour. The maid-servant was paid well for her silence. By
the way, she died mysteriously soon after coming to America, but not
before giving to my mother a signed paper setting forth clearly every
detail in so far as it bore upon her connection with the hateful
transaction. Conscience was forever at work in my mother's heart; honour
was constantly struggling to the surface, only to be held back by fear
of and loyalty to the man she loved.

"It was decided that the most humane way to put you out of existence was
to leave you on the doorstep of some kindly disposed person, far from
New York. My stepfather and my mother deliberately set forth on this
so-called mission of mercy. They came north, and by chance, fell in with
a resident of Boggs City while in the station at Albany. They were
debating which way to turn for the next step. My mother was firm in the
resolve that you should be left in th