“Mrs. Kinlay is dangerously ill.  However, I was at Crua Breck yesterday and saw her.  It seems that when Sandy took the bairn to her, she, in her excitement at its recovery, claimed it as her own.  There was no clothing on the child to identify it by, you see, and she did not discover her mistake for some hours after Sandy had gone.  But Sandy had told her that Mr. Quendale was to return to Pomona very soon, and Thora was kept there until her father should come back.”

“But, Andrew, man, how do you explain their keeping Thora and bringing her up as their own bairn if, as you affirm, she was known to be the daughter of other parents?”

“Simply in this way,” said Mr. Drever; “Carver, you see, knew very well that Mr. Quendale was expected back in Orkney.  He kept the girl, as his wife confesses, hoping for a ransom from so wealthy a father.  But having begun, very foolishly, by passing Thora off as his own bairn, he was obliged to continue to recognize her as such before folk, still believing that her true father would reappear.”

Bailie Duke was not altogether satisfied with this explanation.

He turned to Thora and said:  “Did Carver always treat you kindly, Thora—­as a father?”

Thora looked up appealingly to him, with tears on her cheek, saying:  “No, Mr. Duke.  He was good to me before folk; but he was very hard sometimes.”

“And your mother—­I mean Mrs. Kinlay—­was she good to you?”

“She has aye been good to me; but not like a mother,” said Thora, as plaintively as a lost lamb.

“And you never suspected that she was not your true mother?” asked Mr. Duke.

“Not till Colin Lothian spoke to me about it.”

“There is certainly some mystery about all this,” said the bailie, turning to Andrew Drever.  “But it remains with us to communicate with this Mr. Quendale, if he is still alive.”

“He is not alive,” said Andrew, with conviction.

“Oh, then, you know something of him?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Drever; and here he turned to me and asked me, to my surprise, to relate all that had occurred during my solitary voyage in the Falcon.  I did not see what possible application this could have to the case, or how it could be connected with the mystery of Thora’s parentage.  But I related my adventure.

I told how David Flett had been knocked overboard, and of the mate and Jerry leaving me alone on the schooner; of my difficult navigation of her, and of my discovery of the Pilgrim.  Here the schoolmaster called the magistrate to give attention, and I guessed that it must be with the ill-fated ship that the mystery was to be in some way cleared.  I told how I saw the supercargo seated at the table in the cabin, and how I had read the last entry in his log book.

Andrew Drever opened the book, which was before him, and passed it to Mr. Duke, saying:  “You will observe, sir, that the last date written here is January, 1831.  Thirteen years ago.”