"That's her half-sister," he said, "Una Callingham--your wife's
child by her second marriage. She may be like her, no doubt, as
half-sisters often are. But Mary Wharton, I know, died some eighteen
years ago or so, when Una was quite a baby, I believe. I've heard
all about it, because, don't you see, I'm engaged to Una."

The poor wreck of a clergyman, however, shook his head with profound
conviction. He knew better than that.

"Oh no," he said decisively: "that's my child, Mary Wharton. Even
after all these years, I couldn't possibly be mistaken. Blood is
thicker than water: I'd know her among ten thousand. She'd be just
that age now, too. I see the creature's vile plot. His daughter died
young, and he's palmed off my Mary as his own child, to keep her
money in his hands. But never mind the money. Thank Heaven, she's
alive! That's her! That's my Mary!"

The plot seemed too diabolical and too improbable for anybody to
believe. Jack could hardly think it possible when his new friend
told him. But the stranger persisted so--it's hard for me even to
think of him as quite really my father--that Jack at last brought
out two or three earlier photographs I'd given him some time before;
and his visitor recognised them at once, in all their stages, as his
own daughter. This roused Jack's curiosity. He determined to hunt
the matter up with his unknown connection. And he hunted it up
thenceforward with deliberate care, till he proved every word of it.

Meanwhile, the poor broken-down man, worn out with his long tramp
and his terrible emotions, fell ill almost at once, in Jack's own