My head began to whirl. Affairs were growing too complicated for me. "I don't understand what you are talking about," I returned wearily.
"I'll explain. It all happened so very long ago that I never mention it, but the fact is that two years after Ruth's mother died I married Philip Darwin's sister."
"Darwin knew then that Dick was his nephew?" I asked when he paused.
"No. No one knows it except myself. Philip Darwin could not have been more than ten or so at the time, and I doubt if he remembers that he ever had a sister. You see when I met her I had no idea who she was, for she was acting under an assumed name. She had been on the stage six months and was heartily sick of it when I was introduced to her. We fell in love with each other and before the wedding she confided her story to me.
"Her father, Frank Darwin, was a stern, unyielding, puritanical man, who had no use for what he called the lure of the world. On the other hand, Leila was just eighteen, beautiful, proud, wilful. She had read of the wonders of the stage and when her father opposed her desire to become an actress she ran away from home. When he learned that she had actually joined a theatrical company, he disinherited her and refused to have anything further to do with her, forbidding his two sons, Robert, who became Lee's father, and Philip, from ever mentioning her name or seeing her again. She died when Dick was born, poor little girl, more than twenty-five years ago, and I think I had almost forgotten the relationship. A quarter century is more than ample time to erase a memory," he ended with a sigh.
I was silent for a while and then asked him why he had not told Philip Darwin that Dick was his nephew, thus avoiding all the dire consequences which had followed Darwin's threat of exposure.
"Because it would have made no difference to him at all," answered Mr. Trenton. "He wanted Ruth and if she had refused him he would have revenged himself by exposing Dick, knowing that we would suffer far more than he. Besides, he would have demanded proofs. I had none which I could give him."
"What about family resemblance?"
Mr. Trenton shook his head. "They are both dark and about the same build. That is as far as the resemblance goes, and that's no proof, for Ruth is dark, too."
"And you really think that Dick—"