"But does he know the part which Vorski played?"
"Yes, but with certain differences. He thinks that Vorski is an escaped prisoner who picked up the legend of Sarek and, in order to get hold of the God-Stone, proceeded to carry out the prophecy touching it. I have kept some of the lines of the prophecy from François."
"And the part played by Elfride? Her hatred for you? The threats she made you?"
"Madwoman's talk, I told François, of which I myself did not understand the meaning."
Don Luis smiled:
"The explanation is a little arbitrary; and I have a notion that François quite well understands that certain parts of the tragedy remain and must remain obscure to him. The great thing, don't you think, is that he should not know that Vorski was his father?"
"He does not know and he never will."
"And then—and this is what I was coming to—what name will he bear himself?"
"What do you mean?"
"Whose son will he believe himself to be? For you know as well as I do that the legal reality is this, that François Vorski died fifteen years ago, drowned in a shipwreck, and his grandfather with him. And Vorski died last year, stabbed by a fellow-prisoner. Neither of them is alive in the eyes of the law. So . . ."