"Well, in a way, I am," he rejoined. "I hold large estates in my own name, and can draw fifty or sixty thousand a year interest from them if I like. But there have been events--there are peculiar circumstances in connection with the inheritance of the property, which make me feel myself not quite entitled to use it freely--not yet. I _will_ use it, after this year, if nothing happens. I think I _ought_ to; but I have put it off hitherto so as to make as sure as possible that I was lawfully in possession. I will tell you how it is," he proceeded, leaning forward and clasping his knee with his big brown hands. "I am used to speaking of the main facts freely, because I am always in hopes of discovering something as I go about the world. A good many years ago my father's second brother disappeared, and was never heard of afterwards. He and the eldest brother, at that time the head of the family, and in possession of the property, quarrelled about--well, about a woman whom both were in love with; and the elder one was found dead--shot dead--in a plantation not far from the house on the evening of the day of the quarrel, an hour after the total disappearance of the other. My uncle Kingscote--I was named after him, and he was my godfather--was last seen going out towards the plantation with his gun; he was traced to London within the next few days; and it was almost--but just not quite certainly--proved that he had there gone on board a ship that sailed for South America and was lost. He was advertised for in every respectable newspaper in the world, at intervals, for twenty years afterwards--during which time the estate was in Chancery, before they would grant it to my father, from whom it descended to me--and I should think the agony columns of all countries never had one message cast into such various shapes. But he never gave a sign. All sorts of apparent clues were followed up, but they led to nothing. If alive he must have known that it was all right, and would have come home to take his property. He _must_ have gone down in that ship." "But--oh, surely he would never have come back to take the property of a murdered brother!" exclaimed Elizabeth, in a shocked voice.