"I'll tell you—I'll tell you the whole truth, Falconer; and if you can make excuse for me, if you can put yourself in my place—"
He drew his hand across his brow as if the sweat had broken out upon it. "The luck was dead against me for a time, the old luck that had haunted you and me; then it swung round completely—as it generally does when it changes at all. I was out in Africa, on the tramp, picking up a day's work now and again at the farms—you know the life! One day I saw a Kaffir boy playing with some rough stones—"
Falconer nodded.
"Diamonds. I fancy I've read an account of the great Sir Stephen Orme's first beginnings," he put in with a touch of sarcasm.
Sir Stephen reddened.
"I daresay. It was the start, the commencement of the luck. From the evening I took those stones in my hands—great Heaven! I can see the place now, the sunset on the hill; the dirty brat playing in the dust!—the luck has stood by me. Everything I touched turned out right. I left the diamond business and went in for land: wherever I bought land towns sprang up and the land increased in value a thousandfold. Then I stood in with the natives: you've heard of the treaty—"
Falconer nodded.
"The treaty that enabled you to hand over so many thousand square miles to the government in exchange for a knighthood."
"No," said Sir Stephen, simply. "I got that for another business; but I daresay the other thing helped. It doesn't matter. Then I—I married. I married the daughter of a man of position, a girl who—who loved and trusted me; who knew nothing of the past you and I know; and as I would rather have died than that she should have known anything of it, I—"
"Conveniently and decently buried it," put in Falconer. "Oh, yes, I can see the whole thing! You had blossomed out from Black Steve—"