A woman overcome by emotion as she had been does not run away from the recently discovered body of her dead husband.

So the police argued—argued in the dark—in ignorance of the facts, and left her in the dark in fancied possession of them.

Should she go to that cabin with the light, brave it out there, and carry the lie on further?

Or should she steal off in the gradually growing darker night, and escape home?

Home! Her home more than fifty miles away in the village of Oakville.

She determined to do that. Many reasons prompted her to the act.[Pg 78]

[Pg 78]

Her husband had not been on the boat. Another man bearing his name filled his berth.

There was trickery somewhere—but that was no novelty where her husband was concerned. She was unprepared for it, and had made a mistake. Best rectify it by escape.

She did. Cleared the ship without a soul noticing it.

Reached the railway station, and hid herself in a corner of the ladies' waiting room till the Oakville train started. In that train she was carried home.

Her real name? Todd—Susan Todd. Her husband? Josh Todd.

All that was left of the husband was in the cabin of the ship she had left. It had traveled in two portmanteaus.

His had been a checkered career, but at last he had handed in his checks.

How did it happen that he masqueraded before Lawyer Loide as George Depew?

Because he was the right hand of the somewhat illiterate western farmer who bore that name, or as he would himself have described it, his head cook and bottle washer.

George Depew could write his name, and his caligraphic talents ended right there. So he took for assistant Josh Todd.[Pg 79]

[Pg 79]

Josh saw to all the correspondence, opened the letters, read and answered them. His wife, Susan, was the house help.

Between them, they were paid well, and could have put away for the rainy day. But 

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