clever plan to set that straight. He concealed from the people in
Australia which child had been ill, and he entered her death as Mary
Wharton. Then, to cover the falsification, he left Melbourne at
once, and travelled about for some years on the Continent in
out-of-the-way places till all had been forgotten. You went forth
upon the world as Una Callingham, with your true personality as Mary
Wharton all obscured even in your own memory. Fortunately for your
false father's plot, you were small for your age, and developed
slowly: he gave out, on the contrary, that you were big for your
years and had outgrown yourself, Australian-wise, both in wisdom and
stature."

"But my mother!" I exclaimed, appalled. 'How could she ever consent
to such a wicked deception?"

"Mr. Callingham had your mother completely under his thumb," Jack
answered with promptitude. "She couldn't call her soul her own, your
poor mother--so I've heard: he cajoled her and terrified her till
she didn't dare to oppose him. Poor shrinking creature, she was
afraid of her life to do anything except as he bade her. He must
have persuaded her first to acquiesce passively in this hateful
plot, and then must have terrified her afterwards into full
compliance by threats of exposure."

"He was a very unhappy man himself," I put in, casting back. "His
money did him no good. I can remember now how gloomy and moody he
was often, at The Grange."

"Quite true," Jack replied. "He lived in perpetual fear of your real
father's return, or of some other breakdown to his complicated