I wondered if they might be relatives of yours."

I bowed acquiescence. The chief looked at the paragraph below
his wife's indicating thumb, then he looked at me as if I, too,
had suffered a seachange.

"I had no idea--" he said. "Why, now--now you are Sir Marcus
Ordeyne!"

"It sounds idiotic, doesn't it? " said I, with a smile. "But I
suppose I -am."

And so came my release from captivity. I was profoundly affected
by the awful disaster, but it would be sheer hypocrisy if I said
that I felt personal grief. I knew none of the dead, of whom I
verily believe the valet was the worthiest man. My grandfather
and uncles had ignored my existence. Not a helping hand had they
stretched out to my widowed mother in her poverty, when one
kindly touch would have meant all.

They do not seem to have been a lovable race, the Ordeynes. What
my father, the youngest son, was like, I have no idea, as he died
when I was two years old, but my mother, who was somewhat stern
and puritanical, spoke of him very much as she would have spoken
of the prophet Joel, had he been a personal acquaintance.

Seven years to-day have I been a free man.

Feeling at peace with all the world I called this afternoon on my
Aunt Jessica, Mrs. Ordeyne, who has borne me no malice for