"I have, uncle," Ronan retorted, "and no one is more grateful to you than I. But Captain Pettigrew has very strong ideas about heredity. He believes the tendency to drink, insanity, and sexual lust haunts families, and that, even if it lies dormant for one generation, it is almost bound to manifest itself in another. I told him I was quite sure I was all right in this respect, but he says he wants your corroboration, and that if you will affirm it by letter, he will at once give his consent to my engagement to Ione. I know letter-writing is a confounded nuisance to you, uncle, but do please assure Captain Pettigrew at once that we have no family predisposition of the kind he fears." Mr Malachy leaned back in his chair and gazed into the long gilt mirror over the mantel-shelf. "Drink and gambling," he said. "And suicide," Ronan added. "You can at any rate swear to the absence of that in our family----" but, happening to glance at the mirror as he spoke, he caught in it a reflection of his uncle's face, that at once made him turn round. "Uncle!" he cried. "Tell me! What is it? Why do you look like that?" Mr Malachy was silent. "You're hiding something," Ronan exclaimed sharply. "Tell me what it is. Tell me, I say, and for God's sake put an end to my suspense." "You are right, Ronan," his uncle responded slowly. "I am hiding something, something I ought perhaps to have told you long ago. It's about your father." "My father!" "Yes, your father. I have always told you he was lost at sea. Well, so he was, but in circumstances that were undoubtedly mysterious. He was last seen alive on the wharf at Annan, where he was apparently waiting for a boat to take him to the opposite coast. Someone said they saw him suddenly leap in the water, and some days later a body, declared to be his, was picked up in the Solway Firth." "Then it was suicide," Ronan gasped. "My God, how awful! Was anyone with him at the time?" "I don't think I need tell you any more." "Yes, tell me everything," Ronan answered bitterly. "Nothing makes any difference now. Let me hear all, I insist." In a voice that shook to such an extent that Ronan looked at him in horror, Mr Malachy continued: "Ronan," he said, "remember that I tell you against my will, and that you are forcing me to speak. They did say at the time that there was a woman with your father--a woman who had travelled with him all the way from Lockerbie--that they quarrelled, that he--he----" "Yes--go on! For God's sake go on." "Pushed her in the water--in a rage, mind you, in a rage, I say; and then, apparently appalled at what he had done, jumped in, too." "Were they both drowned then?" "Yes." "And no one tried to save them?" "No one was near enough. The tide was running strong at the time, and they were both carried out to sea. The woman's body was never found; and your father's, when it was recovered several days afterwards, was so disfigured that it could only be identified by the clothes."