In fact, I told him that Lord Garvington was afraid of burglars, and had threatened to shoot any man who tried to enter the house." All this Silver said in a perfectly frank, free-and-easy manner, and also related how the dead man had instructed him to ask Garvington to allow the gypsies to remain in the wood.

The reporter published the interview with sundry comments of his own, and it was read with great avidity by the public at large and by the many friends of the millionaire, who were surprised to learn of the double life led by the man.

Of course, there was nothing disgraceful in Pine's past as Ishmael Hearne, and all attempts to discover something shady about his antecedents were vain.

Yet--as was pointed out--there must have been something wrong, else the adventurer, as he plainly was, would not have met so terrible a death.

But in spite of every one's desire to find fire to account for the smoke, nothing to Pine's disadvantage could be learned.