"Because--because I had thought--because I wished to be sure of whom I was speaking with." "You may rest assured. And now, sir, let me ask you what you know about this unhappy Mr. Cundall and his life?" "I know much about him. To begin with, I know that he was your brother--your elder brother--and that you have come to possess his fortune." Lord Penlyn started and said: "You know that? May I ask how you know it?" "It is not necessary for me to say. It is sufficient that I do know it. But it is not of that that I have come to talk." "Of what have you come to talk then?" "Of his murderer." "Of his murderer!" the other repeated. "Oh! Señor Guffanta, is it possible that you can have any clue, is it possible that you think you will be able to find the man who killed him?" "_I am sure of it_." Lord Penlyn stared at him as he spoke, stared at him while in his mind there was a feeling of astonishment, mixed with something like awe, of his strange visitor. This dark, powerful-looking stranger, sat there before him perfectly calm and unmoved, looking straight at him as he spoke these words of import, "I am sure of it," and spoke them as though he was speaking of some ordinary incident. And in his calmness there was something that told the other that it was born of certainty. "If you can do that, Señor Guffanta," he said, "there is nothing that you can ask from me, there is nothing that I can give that----" "There is nothing I want of you," the Spaniard said, interrupting him, and making a disdainful motion with his long, brown hand. "I am not a paid police spy." "I beg your pardon," the other answered. "I had no thought of offence. Only, sir, it is the wish of my life, and of some others who knew and loved him, to see him avenged. "And it is the wish of my life also. Will you hear a short story?" "I will hear anything you have to say." "Then listen. I was born in Honduras, the child of a Spanish lady and of a friend of the old Englishman, Cundall, him from whom your brother's wealth was derived. That friend was a scoundrel, a man who tricked my mother into a marriage with him under a false name, who never was her husband at all. When they had been married, as she thought, for some few years, and when another child, my sister, had been born, she found out the deception, and--she killed him." "Killed him!" Penlyn exclaimed.