"I will tell you this," I answered hotly. "If I were you, and Lady Angela had promised to be my wife, I would not sit and hatch scruples about marrying her. I would marry her first, and make her happy afterwards, and as for the rest--for the questions which you have asked me, and yet not put into words--I have never heard or seen in Lady Angela the slightest sign that you were not her lover as well as the man whom she was engaged to marry. As for my own folly, since you seem to have noticed it, no one knows better than I that it is the rankest, most absurd presumption. But with me it begins and ends. That is a most absolute and certain fact." Ray rapped his pipe upon the table. "Listen," he said. "I found you nameless and practically lost. Yet you have powerful relatives, and your family is equal to the Duke's. There may be money too some day. Bear these things in mind. Can you repeat what you have said?" It was a wild dream--a wonderful one. But, before me I saw the stern white face of the man, eager for his share of happiness after all these magnificent years of dauntless service. I forgot my own distrust of him, his coldness, his brutality. I remembered only those other and greater things. "Even were I in such a position," I said, "it would make no difference. I am sure that Lady Angela is loyal. She has no idea--and it is not worth while that she should have." "You would have me marry her, then?" he asked slowly. "There is only one thing," I said, taking my courage into my hands. "And that?" he asked sharply. "That," I answered, "lies between you and your conscience." He rose to his feet. "Wait here," he said, "and I will show you my justification." CHAPTER XXXI MY FATHER'S LETTER I heard Ray's heavy footsteps ascending the stairs to his room. In a few moments he returned, bearing in his hand a letter. "Guy," he said thoughtfully, "I am a man who is slow to place trust in any one. For that reason, and perhaps because ignorance was better for you, I have told you little of the events of that night. Now my first opinion of you has undergone some modifications. You are stronger than I thought, you have shown faith in me too, or I should not be here practically a guest under your roof to-night. Listen! The man whom you found dead in the marshes was not your father!" I was not surprised. Always I had doubted it. "Who was he, then?" I asked calmly. "When your father went mad at Gibraltar," Ray said, "he needed help. This man, Clery by name, supplied it. When I knew them both he was your father's valet. Since then he has been his confederate in many schemes. Your father on many occasions manifested the remnants of a sense of honour. This creature set himself deliberately and successfully to corrupt it. He was a parasite, a nerveless, bloodless thing without a single human attribute. He and that woman were alike responsible for your father's ruined life."