but my relations may be more interesting to you than I am. The
family is now a very small one and seems likely to remain so, for of
my three uncles all are bachelors. I have no other blood relations
in Europe and know nothing of some distant cousins who live in
Australia.

"The story of my family is this: John Redmayne lived his life on the
Murray River in Victoria, South Australia, and there he made a
considerable fortune out of sheep. He married and had a large
family. Out of seven sons and five daughters born to them during a
period of twenty years, Jenny and John Redmayne only saw five of
their children grow into adult health and strength. Four boys lived,
the rest died young; though two were drowned in a boating accident
and my Aunt Mary, their eldest daughter, lived a year after her
marriage.

"There remained four sons: Henry, the eldest, Albert, Bendigo, and
Robert, the youngest of the family, now a man of thirty-five. It is
he you are seeking in this awful thing that is thought to have
happened.

"Henry Redmayne was his father's representative in England and a
wool broker on his own account. He married and had one daughter:
myself. I remember my parents very well, for I was fifteen and at
school when they died. They were on their way to Australia, so that
my father might see his father and mother again after the lapse of
many years. But their ship, _The Wattle Blossom_, was lost with all
hands and I became an orphan.

"John Redmayne, my grandfather, though a rich man was a great