had arrived at this rather complicated result, he began to feel that his brain was getting into a whirl, and he came to a hasty resolution. That resolution was that he would abandon this business altogether; that, on the next day but one, he would go to Belize and pay his visit to the Sprangers, while, when that visit was concluded, he would, instead of returning to Desolada, set out on his return journey to England.

"Even though my uncle--if he was my uncle and not my father--spoke the truth and told everything exactly as it occurred, how is it to be proved? How can any legal power on earth dispossess a man who has been brought up here from his infancy, in favour of one who comes without any evidence in his favour, since that certificate of my baptism in New Orleans, although it states me to be the son of the late owner of this place, cannot be substantiated? Any man might have taken any child and had such an entry as that made. And if he--he my uncle, or my father--could conceive such a scheme as he revealed to me--or such a scheme as he did not reveal to me--then, the entry at New Orleans would not present much difficulty to one like him. It is proof--proof that it be----" He stopped in his meditations--stopped, wondering where he had heard something said about "proof" before on this evening.

Then, in a moment, he recalled the almost whispered words; the words that in absolute fact were whispered from the balcony below, before he went down to take his seat at the supper table; the utterance of Sebastian:

"Know--of course he must know. But knowledge is not always proof."

How strange it was, he thought, that, while he had been indulging in his musings, jotting down his little facts on the sheet of paper, he should have forgotten those words.

"Knowledge is not always proof." What knowledge? Whose? Whose could it be but his! Whose knowledge that was not proof had Sebastian referred to? Then again, in a moment--again suddenly--he came to another determination, another resolve. He did possess some knowledge that this man, Sebastian could not dispute--for it would have been folly to imagine he had been speaking of any one else but him--though he had no proof. So be it, only, now, he would endeavour to discover a proof that should justify such knowledge. He would not slink away from the colony until he had exhausted every attempt to discover that proof. If it was to be found he would find it.

Perhaps, after all, his uncle was his uncle, perhaps that uncle had undoubtedly uttered the 

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