er people had been rich." He paused a moment for a sigh.

"She and the servants--they passed as her father and mother--found work
in Chicago. My father was a lawyer there. He was an Englishman, you
know--I've told you that before--but he thought his profession was
overstocked at home, so he tried his luck on the other side. The old
Russian chap was hurt in the factory where he worked, and that's the
way my father--whose name was Robert Donaldson--got to know my mother.
There was a question of compensation, and my father conducted the case.
He won it.

"And he won a wife, too. She was nineteen when I was born. Father was
getting on, but they were poor and had a hard time to make ends meet.
They worshipped each other and worshipped me. You can think whether I
adored them!

"Mother was the most beautiful creature you ever saw. Everyone looked
at her. I used to notice that when I was a wee chap, walking with my
hand in hers. When I was ten and going to school my father had a bad
illness--rheumatic fever. We got hard up while he was sick; and then came
a letter for mother from Russia. Some distant relations in Moscow had had
her traced by detectives. It seemed there was quite a lot of money which
ought to come to her, and if she would go to Russia and prove who she was
she could get it.

"If father'd been well and making enough for us all he'd never have let
her go, but he was weak and anxious about the future, so she took things
into her own hands and went, without waiting for yes or no, or anything
except to find a woman who'd look after father and me while she was gone.
Well, she never came back. Can you guess what became of her?" he asked,
huskily.

"She died?" Annesley asked, forgetting in her interest, which grew with
the story, to wonder what the history of Knight's childhood and his
parents' troubles had to do with the Malindore diamond.

"She died before my father could find her; but not for a long time.
God--what a time of agony for her! Things happened I can't tell you
about. We heard nothing, after a letter from the ship and a cable from
Moscow with two words--'Well. Love.'

"For a while father waited and tried not to be too anxious; but after a
time he telegraphed, and then again and again. No answer. He went nearly
mad. Before he was well enough to travel he borrowed money and started
for Russia to look for her. I stayed in Chicago--and kept on going to
school. The friends who took care of me made me do