mouthfuls of it, and then set the cup aside. "I can't enjoy anything; it
takes the savour out of everything when I think of it," he added, with a
note of pathos in his voice. "My dad, my dear, bully old dad, the best
and dearest old boy in all the world! I suppose, Mr. Headland, that Mr.
Narkom has told you something about the case?"

"A little--a very little indeed. I know that your father went to Java,
and married a second wife there; and I know, too, that you yourself were
rather taken with the lady at one time, and that she threw you over as
soon as Mr. Bawdrey senior became a possibility."

"That's a mistake," he replied. "She never threw me over, Mr. Headland;
she never had the chance. I found her out long before my father became
anything like what you might call a rival, found her out as a mercenary,
designing woman, and broke from her voluntarily. I only wish that I had
known that he had one serious thought regarding her. I could have warned
him; I could have spoken then. But I never did find out until it was too
late. Trust her for that. She waited until I had gone up-country to look
after some fine old porcelains and enamels that the governor had heard
about; then she hurried him off and tricked him into a hasty marriage.
Of course, after that I couldn't speak--I wouldn't speak. She was my
father's wife, and he was so proud of her, so happy, dear old boy, that
I'd have been little better than a brute to say anything against her."

"What could you have said if you had spoken?"

"Oh, lots of things--the things that made me break away from her in the
beginning. She'd had more love affairs than one; her late father's
masquerading as a doctor for another. They had only used that as a
cloak. They had run a gambling-house on the sly--he as the card-sharper,