ot so much that my ideas
have been warped and distorted, as that my reason has not altogether
given way beneath the strain. For, Leo, I want you to understand that I
loved your mother; _I loved her_!" he repeated fiercely, with a strange
maniacal gleam flashing in his eyes. Then, after pausing for a moment
and recovering control of himself by a powerful effort, he continued:

"What was the question?--oh, yes, I remember! In the first place, you
were, as a child, strikingly like your mother--you are so even now,
although the likeness is no longer so marked as it was. Thus you were a
constant reminder to me of one who had first raised me to the highest
pinnacle of human bliss only to hurl me thence into the lowest depths of
grief and humiliation. Then your wonderful physical resemblance to your
mother caused me to dread that you would also inherit her character, and
that you would grow up deceitful and untrustworthy. Connect those two
feelings with the unbalanced state of my mind and you will easily
understand the rest.

"This miserable state of things remained with me up to the time of
receiving the letter penned by you after your escape from La Guayra; and
you will not be surprised to learn that, after so many years of mental
anguish, as acute at the end as it was at the beginning, your letter
found me with my health undermined, my reason tottering, and myself in
hourly danger of dropping into a suicide's grave. That letter, Leo,
aroused me; it dispelled the unhealthy vapours from my mind, caused me
to see circumstances in a totally different light from that in which I
had regarded them before, and, finally, impelled me to take ship and
come out here to join you; as the idea suddenly took hold upon me that,
with the aid of your young, healthy, vigorous, common-sense intellect,
the question which has tormented me all these years might after all be
definitely settled one way or the other. And now you have not only the
bitter secret of my life, Leo, but the explanation of my being on board
the Indiaman."

I warmly grasped the hand which my father extended to me across the
table, and said:

"I believe, father, you have done well to come out here; indeed I might
almost venture to say that your decision to do so seems providential, as
perhaps you too will think, when I tell you that a certain Giuseppe
Merlani, an Italian, is a notorious character in these regions. Not
that I think it probable _he_ can be the indi