will do no good and interest nobody; particularly as the purpose of this
confession is to declare the Vrain conspiracy and its failure; so I
will pass over my early years as speedily as possible. To be brief: I
became a newsboy, then a reporter; afterwards I went West and tried my
luck in San Francisco, later on in Texas; but in every case I failed,
and became poorer and more desperate than ever. In New Orleans I set up
a newspaper and had a brief time of prosperity, when I married the
daughter of a hotelkeeper, and for the time was happy.

"Then the Civil War broke out, and I was ruined. My wife died, leaving
me with one child, whom I called Lydia, after her, but that child died
also, and I was left alone. After the war I prospered again for a time,
and married a woman with money. She also died, and left a daughter, and
this child I again called Lydia, in memory of my first wife, who was the
only woman I ever truly loved. I placed little Lydia in a convent for
education, and devoted my second wife's money to that purpose; then I
started out for the fifth or sixth time to make my fortune. Needless to
say, I did not make it.

"I pass over a long period of distress and prosperity, hopes and fears.
One day I was rich, the next poor; and Fate--or whatever malignant deity
looked after my poor affairs--knocked me about most cruelly, tossed me
up, threw me down, and at the end of a score of years left me
comparatively prosperous, with an income, in English money, of L500 a
year. With this I returned to Washington to seek Lydia, and found her
grown up into a beautiful and clever girl. Her beauty gave me the idea
that I might marry her well in Europe as an American heiress. So for
Europe we started, and after many years of travel about the Continent we
settled down in the Pension Donizetti in Florence. There Lydia was
admired for her beauty and wit, and courted for her money! But save for
my ten pounds a week, which we eked out in the most frugal manner, we
had not a penny between us.

"It was in Florence that we met with Vrain and his daughter, who came to
stay at the Pension. He was a quiet, harmless old gentleman, a trifle
weak in the head, which his daughter said came from over-study, but
which I discovered afterwards was due to habitual indulgence in morphia
and other drugs. His daughter watched him closely, and--not having a
will of his own by reason of his weak brain--he submitted passively to
her guidance. I heard by a