"All the rest were—wiped out. But—I spared the child, because—it had the Jura blood in its veins. It was the Lady Josceline Justice, and she grew up among our tents until she died in my arms the same night I made my unlucky bargain with you, Captain Dove; and I hadn't even the time to bury her ladyship, my dead wife, decently before I put off to your ship!"
He drew a skeleton-like hand across his sunken eyes and blinked at the blazing logs on the hearth before him.
"And now you know where the real Lady Josceline Justice is," said he.
CHAPTER XXIII
A NEW IDEA
"And now you know where the real Lady Josceline Justice is," said Farish M'Kissock drearily, almost as if the savour of his overwhelming revenge on all who had wronged him had cloyed already. "The girl you have here—"
"Never mind about her," Captain Dove interrupted hoarsely, and darted a quick, furtive glance at Slyne, who looked very much as if he had just been struck on the back of the head with a hammer. "What are you going to do about it? That's all we want to hear from you."
He had been scarcely less overcome by that most calamitous disclosure than was his unhappy accomplice. And he did not doubt for a moment that Farish M'Kissock was speaking the truth; although until then he himself had been almost convinced that Sallie must indeed be the dead Earl of Jura's daughter. That possibility had been proven so perfectly probable that even the Court of Chancery had accepted it for a fact. But now—
The sudden and cataclysmic collapse of all his own prospects along with hers had spurred Captain Dove's momentarily stunned faculties into a perfect frenzy.