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When it was that Tim first had the conviction that the woman had told a lie about her widowhood and the death of Dudley Stone, he could not have told you. But the Gaelic temperament is always more or less psychic, and resentment had sharpened Tim’s perceptions.

His first meeting with Uncle Justin after the return of the bridal pair from their honeymoon was, perhaps, the most miserable moment in the whole of the miserable affair. Tim longed to take that vile adventuress by the throat and force her to confess to the trickeries and the sortilege wherewith she had brought the noblest Irish gentleman that God ever put on the map down to a state bordering on degradation. Far, far sooner would he have thought of that fine sportsman meeting his death on the hunting-field than of seeing him as he now was, the wreck of his former self, both mentally and physically, with eyes bleared, and unsteady hand, and that furtive look which so pathetically avoided meeting Tim’s glance. Whenever Tim caught that look he felt just as he had done when, at three years old, he caught Pat Mulvaney lamming into Sheilagh. He wanted to charge into Hold-Hands Juliana and trip her up, morally and physically, as he had done to Pat then. And gradually he realized what a shameless liar the woman was. From the first she told him lies—trifling ones for the most part, her age, the provenance of this or that jewel, an obviously false account of Dudley Stone’s adventure—and when Tim taunted her, she only laughed, shrugged her fat shoulders and showed her large white teeth. And, as she lied over this or that, Tim became more and more convinced that she had lied when she gave him a circumstantial account of the death of Dudley Stone over at Monsataz, on the Brazilian coast, of malarial fever, in May, 1924.

‘I don’t believe a word of it,’ Tim said boldly, when she had finished her story. And again she just laughed and showed her big white teeth.

The following year a boy was born of the marriage—quite a fine child, so people said. And thus was Tim O’Clee robbed of title and inheritance in addition to the great loss of Uncle Justin’s affection. And he could do nothing save grind his teeth in an agony of resentment. The conviction had now taken deep root in his mind that some mystery hung over the supposed death of Dudley Stone, but while Uncle Justin was alive nothing could be done. To break the old man’s heart by unmasking the adventuress who had cast her spells over him was not to be thought of, especially as obviously, alas!—he had not many more years to live.

Indeed, he died very soon after that at Traskmoore, whither he had begged to be moved as soon as he felt that his end was nigh. Juliana fortunately refused to go with him, declaring with her accustomed flippancy that he had nothing serious the matter with him; she, herself, she said, was much more ill and could not leave London or the doctor who attended her. So Tim was alone with Uncle Justin when he died, and alone he walked behind the farm wagon which conveyed the grand old sportsman to his last resting-place beside his forebears in the sanctuary of Traskmoore church.

Tim’s grief for many weeks and months transcended other emotions, so that for the time being he even ceased to think of the adventuress who had exercised such a baneful influence over his life. Only a year later did the reaction set in. The baby son of Hold-Hands Juliana had, in the natural course of events, slipped into the title, estates and immense wealth of the O’Clerighs. She herself slipped equally naturally into her position as sole executrix under the will, and as guardian of her boy, with the magnificent jointure bestowed on ‘my adored wife, Juliana,’ by the over-fond, over-trusting old man. Tim’s name was not even mentioned in the will. This neither surprised nor upset him; he knew that Hold-Hands Juliana would have seen to that. And in a way he was glad. The greater the wrong that she did him, the more relentless would he be when the hour of retribution struck at last.

For he never doubted for a moment that that hour would come one day, and for this reason: the day before Uncle Justin died he placed a set of old diaries, which he had kept regularly for years, in Tim’s hands. Why he did it Tim could not say, but anyway, Uncle Justin had then said, with a wan smile:

‘You’ll find many entries that will amuse you, my lad. You remember the day fat Mrs. Benham came out in a pink coat and brass buttons and then the rain came down ... and ... and ... You can read the things right through ... they’ll remind you of some jolly runs we had, you and I ... together....’

He rambled on for a time—already he was very weak; the immediate past seemed to have slipped out of his enfeebled brain; only the happy past came back with its pictures of huntsmen and hounds, of his favourite hunters, and Tim’s first pony.

‘You may read every word, my lad,’ he murmured feebly, ‘there never were any secrets between us until...’

The sentence was never completed, and it was nearly a year later when, in an idle and melancholy mood, Tim turned over the pages of the old diaries, intending to consign them after that to the flames. They were mere records of a simple, uneventful, straight and clean life. A phrase here and there brought a smile to Tim’s lips and a tear to his eyes, for the entries so often concerned him:

‘Tim rode out on Wibbles. The boy has already a fine seat....’

Or:

‘Had a grand run to-day. Killed twice. Tim took Farmer McBride’s fence in fine style....’

Or again:

‘I don’t know what that blighted piano-thumper can mean by saying that Tim can’t be taught to sing. The boy has a splendid voice....’

It was in the fateful year 1924 that Juliana’s name first cropped up in the diary:

‘Sat next Mrs. Stone at dinner. A charming woman.’

And again:

‘With Mrs. Stone to dinner at the Berkeley, afterwards to see the new play at Drury Lane....’

Or:

‘I have never in my life met a more beautiful or more intelligent woman. If I were not so old...’

A few references to her past history, violent abuse of the unknown husband, Dudley Stone, ever-growing admiration for Juliana’s beauty, charm and fascination, together with expressions of passionate adoration, made up the entries for April and part of May. And then came the fateful words:

‘My beloved is free. That blackguard, Stone, is dead. Thank God....’

Followed soon after by:

‘My beloved tells me she must go to that outlandish place to see that the blackguard’s grave is properly tended....’

But there was one entry which set Tim’s blood on fire and caused him to break into stentorian song:

‘I have made a free gift to my beloved of the £50,000 she wanted. I have asked no questions. Why should I? She knows that I would lay my entire fortune at her feet....’

A free gift of £50,000 in the year 1924—just before Hold-Hands Juliana started for Brazil, having given it out that Dudley Stone had died there of malarial fever! That £50,000 had been used—for what? She went to Brazil ostensibly to visit her husband’s grave; she did not require £50,000 for mere travelling expenses. Already she had tricked Traskmoore into a formal promise of marriage.... What was £50,000 to her, then, when the whole of the O’Clerigh fortune was already as good as hers?

Armed with Uncle Justin’s diaries, Tim went to consult one of the foremost lawyers in London and laid the whole case before him. He declared his belief that when the Roumanian woman went through the formality of marriage with the late Earl of Traskmoore she had furnished no proof of the death of her lawful husband, Dudley Stone; that, presumably, that same Dudley Stone was still alive when the second marriage was contracted, and that therefore this second marriage was illegal, the child born of it illegitimate and he, Timothy O’Clerigh, the rightful Earl of Traskmoore. Immense sums were then paid out in fees for the opinion of the most eminent Counsel at the Bar, and subsequently an action was entered in the High Court.

But discoveries revealed the existence of affidavits proving the death of Dudley Stone at Monsataz, in Brazil, of malarial fever in May, 1924, five months before Juliana’s marriage to Lord Traskmoore. These affidavits had been sworn to before the British Consul at Pernambuco by persons of unimpeachable reputation, all of whom were ready to attest in the English courts of law that they had known Dudley Stone, and either been present at his death or otherwise known about it. There was the priest who had heard his last confession and conducted the burial service; there was the doctor who had attended him; and there was his intimate friend out there, Dom Manoël da Lisbao, a gentleman of high social position, formerly an officer in the Brazilian army and at one time military attaché at the Brazilian Ministry in Paris.

Of course, in such circumstances the action was bound to fail: the lawyer advised its immediate withdrawal before further expense was incurred. But Tim was unconvinced, and even while he took his lawyer’s advice, he swore to himself that this would not be the end of this monstrous conspiracy. There was something in Juliana’s blatant show of triumph that proclaimed not virtue victorious, but anxiety happily overcome. The lawyers did not see that, but Tim did. He knew.

Fifty thousand pounds! What did Hold-Hands Juliana want with £50,000 save to bribe three dagoes out there to swear the affidavits that enabled her to become Countess of Traskmoore? The lawyers had pooh-poohed the idea. The whole thing was fantastic, they said; and, in view of the affidavits, could not possibly be proved; but Tim was not an Irishman for nothing.... He had registered a vow that he would carry on the fight; and carry it on he did from that hour—not dreaming then of the amazing series of adventures which caught him up, as in a whirlwind, and tossed him hither and thither like a leaf in a tornado.

His father had left him a few thousands. He had no one to consider but himself. Half his small fortune had gone in futile legal expenses: he put the other half in his pocket and started out for Brazil.