CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
ON THE BLACK HILL ROAD.
This, then, was the mystery which for eighteen years had hung over Kilgorman.

My mother's letter cleared up a part of it, but the rest it plunged into greater mystery still.

That Maurice Gorman was a villain and a usurper was evident.

But who was the rightful heir my mother, either through negligence or of set purpose, had failed to state.

Was it Tim?
or I?
I recalled all I could of my mother's words and acts to us both--how she taught us our letters; how she sang to us; how, when need be, she chid us; how, with a hand for each, she took us as children to church; how she kissed us both at nights, and gave us our porridge when we started for the hills in the morning.