Chapter XVI. Mutual Explanations - Page 2

seem inexplicable to you. In a few weeks everything will have been made clear, in the natural course of events; but, if you would be at all interested to hear, I would greatly prefer that you should have a perfect understanding of the situation before the facts become generally known."

"I should greatly appreciate such a mark of confidence," she replied.

"If agreeable to you, Miss Carleton, let us pass around to the other side; it is less crowded there. My friend and I have two chairs, and, as he has gone to his state-room to do some writing, we shall be in no danger of interruption."

When comfortably seated, the young man said, "It is a strange story which I have to tell, but I will try not to tax your patience too severely. One week ago this afternoon, Miss Carleton, in passing through the hall at Fair Oaks, I accidentally overheard a portion of your conversation with Mr. Whitney, as you related to him the story of the unfortunate love and death of my father, Harold Scott Mainwaring."

Miss Carleton started violently, but said nothing, and, after a slight pause, the speaker continued,-

"My earliest recollections are of a home in Australia, with foster-parents, whose name it is unnecessary to mention, but whose care and love for me seem, as I now look back, to have equalled that bestowed by natural parents upon their own child. Not until I had reached the age of fifteen years did I ever hear of my own father. I then learned that he had given me, at birth, into the keeping of my foster-parents, with instructions that, unless he himself should call for me, I was not even to know of his existence until within five or six years of my majority. I learned, further, that his action in thus placing me in the hands of others had been solely on account of deep trouble and sorrow, of which he wished me to know nothing until I had reached the years of manhood. When giving me into their keeping he had also given them a small packet, containing a sealed letter, which was to be read by me on my twenty-first birthday, if he had not himself claimed me before that time. I was told that, while I was too young to retain any remembrance of him, he frequently visited me and manifested the greatest devotion to his child, but as I grew older he remained away, writing occasionally to my foster-father.

"In the last letter received from him, when I was about five years of age, he stated that he was going to Africa to make a fortune for his son. Nothing further was heard from him until there came tidings of his death at sea, in the manner which you recently related.

"Of all this I, of course, knew nothing until ten years later, but what was told me at that time made a deep impression upon me. Of my mother I could learn absolutely nothing; but for my father, of whom I had no personal knowledge, and concerning whom there seemed so much that was