woman who loved me in return. That was his fault--that for which, Heaven forgive me!--I punished him, made him suffer. She was my love--she loved me--that was certain, beyond all doubt!--and--she married him."

"Go on," Julian said--and now his voice was low, though clear, "go on."

"Her name was Isobel Leigh, and she was the daughter of an English settler who had fallen on evil days, who had gone out from England with her mother and with her--a baby. But now he had become a man who was ruined if he could not pay certain obligations by a given time. They said, in whispers, quietly, that he had used other people's names to make those obligations valuable. And--and--I was away in New Orleans on business. You can understand what happened!"

"Yes, I can understand. A cruel ruse was practised upon you."

"So cruel that, while I was away in the United States, thinking always about her by day and night, I learnt that she had become his wife. Then I swore that it should be ruse against ruse. That is the word! He had made me suffer, he had broken, cursed my life. Well, henceforth, I would break, curse him! This is how I did it."

Mr. Ritherdon paused a moment--his face white and drawn perhaps from the emotion caused by his recollection, perhaps from the disease that was hurrying him to his end. Then, a moment later, he continued:

"There were those with whom I could communicate in Honduras, those who would keep me well informed of all that was taking place in the locality: people I could rely upon. And from them there came to New Orleans, where I still remained, partly on business and partly because it was more than I could endure to go back and see her his wife, the news that she was about to become a mother. That maddened me, drove me to desperation, forced me to commit the crime that I now conceived, and dwelt upon during every hour of the day."

"I begin to understand," Julian said, as Mr. Ritherdon paused. "I begin to understand." Then, from that time he interrupted the other no more--instead, both the narrative and his own feelings held him breathless. The narrative of how he, a newborn infant, the heir to a considerable property, had been spirited away from Honduras to England.

"I found my way to the neighbourhood of Desolada, stopping at Belize when once I was back in the colony, and then going on foot by night through the forest towards where my brother's house was--since I was 

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