out his torturing hand and seized me.  My mother had hoped that his miserly nature would have disposed him to let me go, if he could thereby escape the cost of my maintenance.  But revenge was too sweet to be foregone.  I was dragged away.  He did not want her back.  He hoped her lover would desert her after awhile, and so accomplish her punishment; but he was true!  No, I can never forget my mother’s agony when I was torn from her!” he rose and walked to the window, and returned.  “The hideous picture had grown faint,” he said, “but as I speak it grows clear and black!  You can imagine my life after this!  It was well calculated to turn a moody, passionate boy into a devil!  I was nearly eleven when I lost my mother, and I never heard of her or from her after; yet I never doubted that she loved me and tried to communicate with me, but my father’s infernal spite kept us apart.  At sixteen I ran away.  Your father was friendly to me and tried to persuade me against what he called rashness; but I always fancied he might have helped my mother, backed her up more, and I did not heed him.  I went through a rough training, as you may suppose, and never saw my father’s face again.”

“I can imagine that he could be terrible,” murmured Katherine.  “I was dreadfully afraid of him, but I did not know he had been so cruel.”

George Liddell did not seem to hear her, he was lost in thought.

“You wonder, I daresay, why I tell you this long story,” he resumed; “you will see what it leads up to presently.”

“I am greatly interested,” returned Katherine.

“You will be more so!  From what I told Newton, you know enough of my career in Australia, but you do not know that I married a sweet, delicate woman, who, after the birth of our little Marie, fell into bad health.  If I could have taken her away for a long voyage, it might have saved her, but I was in full swing making my pile, and could not tear myself away; that must have been about the time my father died.  Had I known I was his heir, I should have sent my wife home.  But fool that I was!  I was too wrapped up making money (for the tide had just turned, and I was floating to fortune) to see that she was slipping from me.  I never dreamed my father would die intestate.  I always thought he would take care of his precious gold.  It was well for me he destroyed his will.”

Katherine felt her cheeks glow; but she did not speak.

“Well, I felt furious to think you had been enjoying my money when I did not even know that my father was dead; but I have changed.”

“Why?” asked Katherine, who could not imagine what was his motive for telling her his history.