"That is not the point," said Gerald; "why this secrecy? Why this flight? Dr. Lynn, I am sure, would have enabled you to obey your sister's request in the full light of day; you need not have thrown her coffin on the ground and left to strangers the task of doing for the poor girl the last duties of civilization." Gerald spoke with indignant heat, for this looked to him like the cruellest desertion.
"I know how it must seem to you," said Vincenza, "and I have no excuse to offer for my conduct but this. My sister's death would have given all she possessed to people whom she disliked. It would have thrown me, whom she loved, penniless on the world. I acted as if she were still living, and as I am sure she would have wished me to act; no defence, I know, in your eyes, but consider the temptation."
"And did you not realize that all this must come out some day?" asked Ffrench.
"Yes, but not for several years. Indeed, I cannot imagine how it is that you have stumbled on the truth."
And Gerald, remembering the extraordinary chain of circumstances which had led him to the root of the mystery, could not but acknowledge that, humanly speaking, Vincenza's confidence was justified.
"And now you have found this out, what use do you intend to make of it?" asked the Spaniard after a pause.
"I shall publish the whole story as soon as I return to San
Francisco," answered Gerald promptly.
"So for a few hundred dollars, which is all that you can possibly get out of it, you will make a beggar of me."
"Right is right," said the young Irishman. "This property does not belong to you."
"Will you hold your tongue—or your pen—for fifty thousand dollars?" asked the Spaniard eagerly.