Some years before this Dirk Peters had left Illinois, and even the United States, to go--nobody knows where.

But I have talked, at Vandalia with people who had known him, with whom he lived, to whom he related his adventures, but did not explain the final issue.

Of that he alone holds the secret." What! This Dirk Peters had really existed?
He still lived?
I was on the point of letting myself be carried away by the statements of the captain of the _Halbrane_! Yes, another moment, and, in my turn, I should have made a fool of myself.

This poor mad fellow imagined that he had gone to Illinois and seen people at Vandalia who had known Dirk Peters, and that the latter had disappeared.

No wonder, since he had never existed, save in the brain of the novelist! Nevertheless I did not want to vex Len Guy, and perhaps drive him still more mad.