"Of course—a fine young fellow."
"He is not my real brother. My parents adopted him about ten years ago."
"Indeed."
"Some time ago Dr. Mackey turned up here and claimed Jack as his son."
"Impossible! Why, Dr. Mackey is a bachelor!"
"You are sure of this? He says he was married to Jack's mother, who was shipwrecked on our shore, and who died at this house a few days later."
"I have heard Dr. Mackey declare several times that he was heart-free, that he had never cared for any woman, and consequently had never married."
At this declaration Marion's face lit up.
"I knew it! I knew it!" she cried. "I must tell mamma and Jack at once!"
"Dr. Mackey is a fraud," went on the wounded soldier. "To the best of my knowledge, he comes from Philadelphia, where he used to run a mail-order medical bureau of some sort—something which the Post-office Department stopped as a swindle."