“Your strong resemblance to the priest, your father, was so noticeable when you reached the age of six years, that your mother’s guilt needed no accuser, and in a fit of religious enthusiasm she made a confession of her guilt to her husband. “Señor Carriles’ sympathies in your behalf were greatly aroused. He sought the priest, a man of much wealth and prominence in the State, and told him of his knowledge of the great sin he and your mother had committed. “Under the threat of publicly making known his sins to the clergy and State, he agreed to take you under his guidance and to rear you in a manner befitting his own son. “This promise he religiously kept for five years. Up to that age you were in ignorance of your birth. The priest became very ill and fearing death near by, made a full confession to you. “He afterward recovered, and seriously regretted having made you his confidant. “Instead of treating you as a beloved son, his love had during his short illness turned to hate and he compelled you to act in the capacity of the most common menial. You rebelled at the change affairs had taken, but by so doing you only made your existence the more intolerable. “A lady tourist came to your city one day, and visited the monastery where you lived, it being one of the many places of interest in the city. “She overheard a conversation between yourself and the priest, wherein he threatened to murder you if you made known his treatment of you and the relation he bore to you. “This same lady met you on the street some days later, and took you at once to the palace of the kind and high-minded Governor. “To him she told what she knew concerning you, and besought the noble leader of the people to allow you to speak, which he did. “In a very quiet way he had the priest arraigned before the Church and State, with the result of the priest’s condemnation and sentence of life. “He was found dead the next day after he was acquainted with the court’s decision. “Half of his large fortune was given to you by the Church and State, acknowledging you, thereby, his legal heir. Is there anything I have left out of this recital which you recall, Julio?” Julio straightened himself in the chair, the first move he had made since Marriet Motuble began her recitation, and said: “The gist of the subject you have told perfectly. A few minor things happened which I will later recount. How natural you seem to me now. How astonishingly clear you have related that incident which happened one hundred and fifty years ago, and which caused me to go abroad to study; with the result that I departed from the faith of my father. “You caused much trouble then, but I have to thank you for getting me out of the dreadful mire of ignorance into which I was born and where the priest held me.