He had
lain there by the fire, his life snuffed out like a candle by his own
hand. The broken-hearted old man down South had carried the child of
his son away, fiercely denied the Indian blood, and pledged Aunt Agatha
to the keeping of the secret. And this was the net that had driven
Carl to the verge of insanity and sent Themar to his death in a Florida
swamp!
There was no princess--no child of the exiled Theodomir. The paper
stuffed in the candle-stick in a reckless moment had been but the
ingenious figment of a man's brain for the entertainment of an hour.
The old chief and Sho-caw with their broken tale to Philip had but
tangled the net the more. As the blood of the Indian mother had driven
Diane forth to the forest, so had the blood of the artist father driven
Keela forth from the Indian village, a wanderer apart from her people,
and Fate had relentlessly knotted the threads of their lives in a
Southern pine wood.
CHAPTER LIII
BY MIC-CO'S POOL
To the dark, old-fashioned house in St. Augustine in which Baron Tregar
was a "paying guest" came one twilight, a man for whom compassionately
he had waited. His visitor was sadly white and tired, with heavy lines
about his sullen mouth and the dust of the highway upon his motoring
rig.
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