"New Orleans," Mr. Spranger said now, musingly, contemplatively, with, about him, the manner of one endeavouring to force recollection to come to his aid. "New Orleans--and Madame Carmaux. Why do those names--the names of that city--of that woman--connect themselves together in my mind. Why?" Then suddenly he exclaimed, "I know! I have it! Madame Carmaux is a New Orleans woman."
"A New Orleans woman!" Julian repeated. "A New Orleans woman! Yet he, Sebastian, said when we met--that--that--she was a connection of Isobel Leigh; 'a relative of my late mother,' were his words. How could she have been a relative of hers, if Mr. Leigh came out from England to this place bringing with him his English wife and the child that was Isobel Leigh, as George Ritherdon told me he did? Also----"
"Also what?" Mr. Spranger asked now. "Also what? Though take time--exert your memory to the utmost. There is something strange in the discrepancy between George Ritherdon's statement made in England and Sebastian's made here. What else is it that has struck you?"
"This. As we rode towards Desolada he was telling me that he had never been farther away from Honduras than New Orleans. Then he began to say--I am sure he did--that his mother came from there, but he broke off to modify the statement for another to the effect that she had always desired to visit that city. And when I asked him if his mother came from New Orleans, he said: 'Oh, no! She was the daughter of Mr. Leigh, an English merchant at Belize.'"
"You must have misunderstood him," Mr. Spranger said; "have misunderstood the first part of his remark at any rate."
"Perhaps," Julian said quietly, "perhaps." But, nevertheless, he felt perfectly sure that he had not done so. Then suddenly he said--
"You knew Mr. Ritherdon of Desolada. Tell me, do I bear any resemblance to him?"
"Yes," Mr. Spranger answered gravely, very gravely. "So much of a resemblance that you might well be his son. As great a resemblance to him as you do in a striking manner to Sebastian. You and he might absolutely be brothers.
"Only," said Julian, "such a thing is impossible. Mrs. Ritherdon did not become the mother of twins, and she died within a day or so of giving her first child birth. She could never have borne another."
"That," Spranger acquiesced, "is beyond doubt."