obligation to you."

Frank waited with no change of expression for Dermott to proceed.

"She said she desired her money obligation to be paid immediately."

"It is an affair of small moment," Frank answered.

"You know, perhaps, that my cousin, Madame de Nemours, left her property
to Miss Dulany?"

"I heard of it at the time," Frank returned.

"And named me as executor," Dermott explained.

"A fact which escaped me," Ravenel answered, suavely.

"It has taken some time to settle the estate," Dermott continued,
"because of a certain claim which, if proven, makes the estate a very
valuable one. This claim nearly concerns you."

"Go on," Frank said, briefly, discourteously as well.

"I do not know," Dermott continued, "whether you are aware or not that
your father made an earlier marriage than the one with your mother."

An ominous chill passed over Frank, though he answered, bravely, "I was
not."

"When he was living at Tours he married a girl, an Irish girl, who ran
away from a convent to become his wife. She was but sixteen at the time.
Her name was Patricia McDermott, my cousin, afterward the Countess de
Nemours."

Frank continued to listen, but, although his eyes held keen apprehension
and his face was white, he showed a fine courage.

"My uncle, her father, was an ardent Roman Catholic," Dermott explained,
"a gloomy, overfed, and melancholy man who never forgave his daughter.
In a short time your father seemed to have"--Dermott coughed--"tired of
the affair," he explained, lightly, "and, his studies being finished, he
left his wife and child and returned to America. I do not desire to
dwell on the misery of my cousin and her child. She was cared for by
some poor folks; my uncle gave her a death-bed forgiveness; the child
died, and in process of time she married the Count de Nemours. After the
death of her second husband, she gave me full charge of her affairs, and
among her papers I found documents relating to this early marriage. The
year before your father's death I met him, quite by accident, in New
York. The name was familiar to me. I asked questions, found he was
married and had a son, yourself.

"Mr. Ravenel," Dermott changed his tone of recital to a more intimate
one, "to speak truth, the matter is inexplicable to me. Your father was
a brilliant man; a man of the world who, if he had no religious scruples
on the subject of bigamy, must have had respect for law. Why," Dermott
rose from the tabl