"No, Maria--no!" he answered; "had I done so, I might have been now one of the wealthiest men in Spain. Almost the first question asked me was regarding my faith. You are not perhaps aware that no very strict religious notions of any kind had prevailed in my poor father's house, and I had obtained but little religious instruction there. Neither was my new, my adopted father a bigot; but still he was a Roman Catholic; and when I told him that I had been brought up as a Protestant, he, like the good monks, insisted that I should receive instruction in his own faith. Of course, to that I could not object; but the instruction was interrupted. He was obliged to go to Mexico, and took me with him; but I had learned to inquire for myself, and my inquiries left no doubt. I had at first a difficulty in obtaining books on any side but one; but at Lima, whither we afterwards went, I found several Englishmen, from whom I got all that was needful. I took the Bible and common sense, and I could not be a Papist. South America was at that time in a state of great confusion, and we returned to Spain when I was about eighteen years old, or a little more. My adopted father reached his native land, but with shattered health, and a few months after he felt that he was dying. At that last solemn moment, he required me to tell him whether, in sincerity and truth, I could now embrace and keep the Roman Catholic faith. I answered him sincerely; and, though grieved, he was not offended. He pointed out to me, however, that he could not leave the bulk of his fortune to a heretic; in fact, that his doing so might prove dangerous to myself, by calling attention to facts, regarding my opinions, which had hitherto passed unnoticed. He made his will the same night. Great wealth thereby passed to very distant relations, who had every right to it, and a more humble, but still an ample, share of his fortune came to me. Why, he did not explain; but, probably, in order to gain me good repute amongst the ecclesiastics of his own church, he left several large sums to be distributed by me to religious establishments in Madrid and Toledo; and, as I took care to comply with his instructions in a liberal spirit after his death, no inquiries were made at the time as to my religious views, nor any observations upon my neglect of the forms of the Romish religion. I had entered the Spanish army before my kind friend's death, and ever since have been actively employed, till political changes and some rumours respecting my creed, which might have become dangerous, induced me to go to Italy, where my first visit was to the monks of Ancona. I found that the good brother John, who had been so kind to me, was dead; but he had left with another of my countrymen in the monastery the papers necessary to prove my real name and birth, should it be necessary. I have them safe; but there is no copy of them, and thus there is no one living but yourself who can prove that Frank Middleton is Henry Hayley."