"I fell in love; my affection was returned; we were engaged; a friend in whose honor I fully believed stole her heart away from me, but all these years I have never forgotten—never. John Craig, the girl I loved and who was to have been my wife was—your mother."
The little man folds his arms and throws his head back in a peculiar way he has. How strangely full of dignity these undersized people can be at times.
"Is it possible, and you never breathed a word of all this to me before?"
"Ah! my dear boy, the time was not ripe. I said nothing but sawed wood."
"Why do you speak now?"
"I have an idea that you are about to make a step in the dark, and after duly considering the matter, came to the conclusion that it was time to speak—time to let you know my sympathies were with you, time to take a hand in this game myself."
John hardly knows what to do or say, he is so amazed at such a strange happening.
"But, professor, I am only going now to see if I can learn anything about my mother at the house where she staid six weeks ago, when a line was sent to me."
The little man wags his head wisely.
"That information was given to you by one whom you believed to be Signor Stucco, otherwise Luther Keene, the person having charge of the police of Valetta?"