at he
was my host, and his manner became one of stiff kindness. He ordered an
excellent dinner and chose the wine with care. Then he leaned a little
forward across the table, and electrified me by his first remark.

"Ducaine," he said, "what relatives have you with whom you are in any
sort of communication?"

"None at all!" I answered.

"Sir Michael Trogoldy was your mother's brother," he remarked. "He is
still alive."

"I believe so," I admitted. "I have never approached him, nor has he
ever taken any notice of me."

"You did not write to him, for instance, when Heathcote absconded, and
you had to leave college?"

"Certainly not," I answered. "I did not choose to turn beggar."

"How much," he asked, "do you know of your family history?"

"I know," I told him, "that my father was cashiered from the army for
misconduct, and committed suicide. I know, too, that my mother's people
treated her shamefully, and that she died alone in Paris and almost in
poverty. It was scarcely likely, therefore, that I was going to apply
to them for help." Ray nodded.

"I thought so," he remarked grimly. "I shall have to talk to you for a
few minutes about your father."

I said nothing. My surprise, indeed, had bereft me of words. He sipped
his wine slowly, and continued.

"Fate has dealt a little hardly with you," he said. "I am almost a
stranger to you, and there are even reasons why you and I could never be
friends. Yet it apparently falls to my lot to supplement the little you
know of a very unpleasant portion of your family history. That rascal
of a lawyer who absconded with your money should have told you on your
twenty-first birthday."

"A pleasant heritage!" I remarked bitterly; "yet I always wanted to know
the whole truth."

"Here goes, then," he said, filling my glass with wine. "Your father
was second in command at Gibraltar. He sold a plan of the gallery forts
to the French Government, and was dismissed from the army."

I started as though I had been stung. Ray continued, his stern
matter-of-fact tone unshaken.

"He did not commit suicide as you were told. He lived, in Paris, a life
of continual and painful degeneration. Your mother died of a broken
heart. There was another woman, of course, whose influence over your
father was unbounded, and at whose instigation he committed this
disgraceful act. This woman is now at Braster."

My brain was in a whirl. I was quite incapable of speech.

"Her real name," he