"
'Then we sailed away for England, and the boats fell astern.
'My sons, this is the story of my youth, and of how I came to wed your
mother whom I have buried to-day. Juan de Garcia has kept his word.'
'Yet it seems strange,' said my brother, 'that after all these years he
should have murdered her thus, whom you say he loved. Surely even the
evilest of men had shrunk from such a deed!'
'There is little that is strange about it,' answered my father. 'How
can we know what words were spoken between them before he stabbed her?
Doubtless he told of some of them when he cried to Thomas that now they
would see what truth there was in prophecies. What did de Garcia swear
years since?--that she should come with him or he would kill her. Your
mother was still beautiful, Geoffrey, and he may have given her choice
between flight and death. Seek to know no more, son'--and suddenly my
father hid his face in his hands and broke into sobs that were dreadful
to hear.
'Would that you had told us this tale before, father,' I said so soon
as I could speak. 'Then there would have lived a devil the less in the
world to-day, and I should have been spared a long journey.'
Little did I know how long that journey would be!
CHAPTER VI
GOOD-BYE, SWEETHEART
Within twelve days of the burial of my mother and the telling of the
story of his marriage to her by my father, I was ready to start upon my
search.
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