wrong, my interest every moment grew more and more absorbing. But I
can't recall it now exactly as Jack told me it. I can only give you
the substance of that terrible story.

When Richard Wharton first learned of his wife's second marriage
during his own lifetime to that wicked wretch who had ousted and
supplanted him, he believed also, on the strength of Vivian
Callingham's pretences, that his own daughter had died in her
babyhood in Australia. He fancied, therefore, that no person of his
kin remained alive at all, and that he might proceed to denounce and
punish Vivian Callingham. With that object in view, he tramped down
all the way from London to Torquay, to make himself known to his
wife's relations, the Moores, and to their cousin, Courtenay Ivor of
Babbicombe--my Jack, as I called him. For various reasons of his
own, he called first on Jack, and proceeded to detail to him this
terrible family story.

At first hearing, Jack could hardly believe such a tale was true--of
his Una's father, as he still thought Vivian Callingham. But a
strange chance happened to reveal a still further complication. It
came out in this way. I had given Jack a recent photograph of myself
in fancy dress, which hung up over his mantelpiece. As the
weather-worn visitor's eye fell on the picture, he started and grew
pale.

"Why, that's her!" he cried with a sudden gasp. "That's my
daughter--Mary Wharton!"

Well, naturally enough Jack thought, to begin with, this was a mere
mistake on his strange visitor's part.