lying tale of his devotion to her husband in his dying moments on
that remote ocean speck in the far Southern Pacific. By this story
he ingratiated himself. He knew she was rich: he knew she was worth
marrying: and to marry her, he had left my own real father, Richard
Wharton, to starve and languish for twenty years among rocks and
sea-fowl on a lonely island!

My blood ran cold at such a tale of deadly treachery. I remembered
now to have heard some small part of it before. But much of it, as
Jack told it to me, was quite new and unexpected. No wonder I had
turned in horror that night from the man I long believed to be my
own father, when I learned by what vile and cruelly treacherous
means he had succeeded in imposing his supposed relationship upon
me! But still, all this brought me no nearer the real question of
questions--why did I shoot him?






CHAPTER XXI.

THE PLOT UNRAVELS ITSELF





As Jack went on unfolding that strange tale of fraud and heartless