“But I governed my strong anxiety and refrained from asking her questions about the original of that photograph for a few hours, and then began cautiously to examine her. It is needless to say that I learned all she knew of you.”
“Did you return the confidence, and supplement her small knowledge of my antecedents by telling her all you knew of me?” inquired Lilith.
“Only by saying that you were a very near and dear relative of mine.”
“So much she herself wrote to me; but she wrote of you as Mr. Ancillon, and yet she speaks of you as Señor Zuniga——”
“Yes. I took board with her as Alfred Ancillon. I did not wish, in the case of my arrest under the extradition treaty, to bring an old and proud name into that connection. And so it was not until after I had seen your advertisement, and searched the files of the Pursuivant and discovered my full vindication from that imputed crime, that I determined to resume my own name. When we were once on board the steamer, I told Mrs. Downie that Ancillon was only my professional name, by which I think she understood that I was a literary man writing under that nomme de plume, but that my true name was Zuniga. You look very much astonished, Lilith.”
“I am astonished. I have been wondering in a state of the deepest perplexity over that whole matter!” exclaimed Lilith.
“Wondering why I called myself Zuniga?”
“Yes.”
“Why, my dear, because of all my names, professional or otherwise, that is the one to which I have the best right.”
“Were you—were you, then—were you——”