"I have. It is sacred to me, for it was there my earliest friend breathed his last sigh."
"That chamber is hung with Indian embroidery of shells and feathers upon leather. These hangings are about two feet from the wall, leaving an aperture behind large enough to admit of a slender person's hiding behind the embroidery. On the night of your benefactor's death I was concealed behind these hangings."
"You, a spy? But for what reason?"
"Don't doubt that I had my reason—reasons which at some future time I will reveal. When I carried the child Camillia to her uncle's bedside I heard a few words dropped which excited my curiosity; to gratify that curiosity I concealed myself at eleven o'clock that night behind the hangings of the dying man's bed-chamber. There I heard Tomaso Crivelli dictate his last will and testament to the lawyer, Silas Craig, in the presence of your father. The signature to that will was afterward witnessed by two persons, one a creature of the attorney's, the other a dependent of Don Juan Moraquitos."
"But what has all this to do with me?" asked Paul.
"It might have much to do with you. That night I learned a secret—"
"A secret!"
"Yes; and one by the aid of which I can save you from shame and humiliation, and elevate you to the proudest position even your haughty spirit could devise."
"You can do all this?"
"I can."