]

"Your brother?"

"Yes--my brother. We are twins. You were kidnapped by gypsies
thirty-two years ago. Our old nurse told me the story for the first
time the day before I sailed from New York. She also told me about
that scar on your hand. You cut it badly when you were a year old and
the scar has remained ever since. Everybody believed you dead. Where
have you been all these years?"

Handsome made no answer but fell back a few steps, and passed his hand
over his brow as if bewildered. This astonishing revelation had been
made so suddenly that it had left him dazed. A wild, improbable tale,
it seemed, yet perhaps there was some truth in it. He had never known
who his parents were and it had always seemed to him that he came of
better stock than those with whom he associated. Then again, there was
the ridiculous likeness. One had only to look at them both--it was the
same face.

Slowly, gradually, as he looked more closely at Kenneth the conviction
grew stronger that this, indeed, was his brother, his own flesh and
blood, yet it aroused within him no emotion and left him entirely cold.
No impulse seized him to throw himself into this man's arms and embrace
him. His heart was steeled against the world. Human affection and
sympathy had dried up in his breast years ago. What he saw was not a
kinsman, a brother, but a man who had succeeded in life where he had
failed, a man who was rich and happy while he was poor and miserable, a
man who had everything while he had nothing. And if the tale were
true, if indeed, he were this rich man's brother, it only made matters
worse, for he had been robbed of his rightful inheritance. This rich
man was enjoying wealth half of which rightfully belonged to him.

Again Kenneth demanded:

"Where have you been all these years?"

"Here, there, everywhere," was the sullen answer. "London, Paris,
Brussels, Vienna, New York, Boston, Chicago, Havana, Buenos Ayres. I
know them all and they know me--perhaps too well. My earliest
recollection is of the Italian quarter in New York, a long narrow
always dirty street, bordered on either side by dilapidated greasy
tenements, ricketty fire escapes filled with biddy and garbage. Pietro
lived there and kept his organ in the basement cellar. When Pietro
went out with the organ he took me along to excite sympathy. Until I
was fifteen years old I begged to support Pietro. One day he beat me
and I ran away and shipped as cabin