Only the falsehood--for such it must have been--told by Sebastian to the effect that Miriam Carmaux was his mother's relative, which, since she was a French creole, was impossible. Nothing much more than that; nothing tangible.
As for the slip made by him to Julian, the words, "My mother ca--I mean my mother always wanted to go there and see it," (New Orleans being the place referred to) well, there was nothing in that. It was a slip any one might easily have made. And no living soul in British Honduras had ever heard a whisper of any stolen child. Surely that was enough to settle all doubt.
Then, breaking in upon the silence around, he and his daughter heard Julian saying: "If Monsieur Lemaire's facts are accurate, Sebastian made another misstatement to me. He said that Madame Carmaux had been at Desolada for many years, even before his mother died. That could not have been so."
"And," said Beatrix, emerging now from the silence which she had preserved so long, "it was perhaps with reference to that subject that he had uttered the words which you overheard, to the effect that you must know something, but that knowledge was not always proof."
"All the same," said Mr. Spranger now, "it is a blank wall, a wall against which you will push in vain, I fear. Honestly, I see no outlet."
"Nor I," answered Julian, "yet all the same I mean to try and find one. At present I am groping in the dark; perhaps the light will come some day."
"I cannot believe it," Mr. Spranger said, "much as I might like to do so. If--if Charles Ritherdon's child had been stolen from its father's house how could it be that, in so small a place as this, the thing would never have been heard of? And if it was stolen, if you were stolen, how could another, a substitute, take your place?"
"Heaven only knows," Julian replied. "It is to find out this that I am going back to Desolada," while as he spoke, he saw again on Beatrix's face the look of dissent to that proposed journey which, a day or two before, she had signalled to him through her eyes.
So--determinate, resolved to fathom the mystery, if mystery there were; refusing, too, to believe that George Ritherdon's story could have been one huge fabrication, one hideous falsehood from beginning to end, and that a fabrication, a falsehood, which must ere long be disproved, directly it was challenged--he did set out and was by now drawing near the end of his journey.
"Only," said Beatrix to him on the morning of his departure, "I do so wish you would let me persuade you not to go. I dread----"