"And are you sure that the foundations are solid?"
"Certainly. They're all facts. Here they are," and Roberto drew from his pocket a folded paper. "This is the genealogical tree of my family. This red circle is Don Fermín Núñez de Latona, priest of Labraz, who goes to Venezuela at the end of the seventeenth century, and returns to Spain during the Trafalgar epoch. On his journey home an English vessel captures the Spanish ship on which the priest is sailing and takes him and the other passengers prisoner, transporting them to England. Don Fermín reclaims his fortune of the English government, it is returned to him and he deposits it in the Bank of England, and sails back to Spain during the War of Independence. As money was none too safe in Spain at that time, Don Fermín leaves his fortune in the Bank of England, and on one occasion, desiring to withdraw a large sum for the purchase of certain estates, he goes to England with a cousin's niece;--the cousin was his only relation and was named Juan Antonio. This niece--" and Roberto pointed to a circle upon the sheet, "marries an Irish gentleman, Bandon, and dies after three years. The priest Don Fermín decides to return to Spain and orders his fortune to be remitted to the San Fernando Bank, but before the money is transferred Don Fermín dies. Bandon, the Irishman, presents a will in which the priest names his niece as sole heir, and proves, moreover, that he had a son by his wife, who died directly after baptism. Don Fermín's cousin, Juan Antonio, of Labraz, brings suit against Bandon, and the suit lasts for nearly twenty years. Juan Antonio dies and the Irishman is thus enabled to collect part of the inheritance.
"Juan Antonio's other daughter marries a cousin of hers, a merchant of Haro, and has three children, two boys and a girl. The girl enters a nunnery, one of the boys dies in the Carlist war and the other goes into business and leaves for America.
"This fellow, Juan Manuel Núnez makes a regular fortune and marries a native and has two daughters: Augusta and Margarita. Augusta, the younger, marries my father, Ricardo Hasting, who was a madcap and ran away from his home; Margarita weds a soldier, colonel Buenavida. They all come to Spain with plenty of money; my father plunges into disastrous business schemes, and after he has been utterly ruined he learns, I don't know how, that the fortune of the priest Núñez de Latona is at the disposition of the heirs. He goes to England, enters his claim; they demand his documents, he brings forth the baptismal records of his wife's ancestors and it is found that the priest Don Fermin's birth registration is missing. Soon my father gives up writing and years and years go by; at the end of more than ten we receive a letter telling us that he has died in Australia.