e her, but
agreed to allow her enough to live on if she promised never to trouble
me again, and to keep quiet about everything which had reference to my
connection with her daughter. She promised readily enough, and went
back to her squalid dwelling in the slums, where, for all I know, she
still lives, as money has been paid to her regularly every month by my
solicitors. I heard nothing more about the matter, and now felt quite
satisfied that I had heard the last of Rosanna. As years rolled on,
things prospered with me, and so fortunate was I in all speculations
that my luck became proverbial. Then, alas! when all things seemed to
smile upon me, my wife died, and the world has never seemed the same to
me since. But I had my dear daughter to console me, and in her love and
affection I became reconciled to the loss of my wife. A young Irish
gentleman, called Brian Fitzgerald, came out to Australia, and I soon
saw that my daughter was in love with him, and that he reciprocated
that affection, whereat I was glad, as I have always esteemed him
highly. I looked forward to their marriage, when suddenly a series of
events occurred, which must be fresh in the memory of those who read
these pages. Mr. Oliver Whyte, a gentleman from London, called on me
and startled me with the news that my first wife, Rosanna Moore, was
still living, and that the story of her death had been an ingenious
fabrication in order to deceive me. She had met with an accident, as
stated in the newspaper, and had been taken to an hospital, where she
recovered. The young doctor, who had sent me the certificate of her
death, had fallen in love with her, and wanted to marry her, and had
told me that she was dead in order that her past life might be
obliterated. The doctor, however, died before the marriage, and Rosanna
did not trouble herself about undeceiving me. She was then acting on
the burlesque stage under the name of 'Musette,' and seemed to have
gained an unenviable notoriety by her extravagance and infamy. Whyte
met her in London, and she became his mistress. He seemed to have had a
wonderful influence over her, for she told him all her past life, and
about her marriage with me. Her popularity being on the wane in London,
as she was now growing old-, and had to make way for younger actresses,
Whyte proposed that they should proceed to the colonies and extort
money from me, and he had come to me for that purpose. The villain told
me all this in the coo