They told me that he was conscious to the end and died murmuring the name of that son of whom he spoke in his last words to me.
What was the history of this son, or of Fonseca himself, I never learned, for like an Indian he hid his trail as step by step he wandered down the path of life.

He never spoke of his past, and in all the books and documents that he left behind him there is no allusion to it.

Once, some years ago, I read through the cipher volumes of records that I have spoken of, and of which he gave me the key before he died.

They stand before me on the shelf as I write, and in them are many histories of shame, sorrow, and evil, of faith deluded and innocence betrayed, of the cruelty of priests, of avarice triumphant over love, and of love triumphant over death--enough, indeed, to furnish half a hundred of true romances.

But among these chronicles of a generation now past and forgotten, there is no mention of Fonseca's own name and no hint of his own story.