end between us. The letter, which should have reached me next morning, was kept back by Kate, and did not come to hand till three days later. Within four hours of receiving it I was at Denham Lodge, only to find that Madeline and her uncle had left there the day before.

"My aunt lingered on from week to week. I was her last living relative, and she would not hear of my leaving for longer than a few hours at a time. All I could do was to write a note to Madeline, begging for an explanation, and inclose it under cover to the colonel at his club. A week later my note was returned to me from Paris, together with a few lines from the colonel, stating that thenceforward all communication with me must cease, both on his part and that of his niece. What I had been guilty of which deserved such a sentence I was wholly at a loss to conceive. I could not comprehend the meaning of such an action.

"A month later my aunt died. As soon as I was at liberty, I set out for the continent, but nowhere could I come across a trace of those I was in search of. You know what followed a little later: how I was accidentally wounded while out shooting; how I was carried to Denham Lodge, and there nursed back to convalescence by Kate Ormsby."

"Some part of what you have now told me I know or guessed already," said Roden; "but not the whole of it."

"You did not know how, one day, Kate read to me a passage from a letter professedly written by her correspondent, Lady Linthorpe, in which it was stated that Madeline Fenwicke had been married a fortnight before at Rome. Within six weeks of that day Kate Ormsby had become my wife."

Seating himself on the tree by the side of Marsh, he began to manufacture a cigarette. By this time, to all outward seeming, he was thoroughly himself again.

The shock of the news brought him by his foster brother had stunned, and in a measure unmanned him for a little while, but his nature was too self-poised, and his nerves too thoroughly under control, to allow of his equanimity being seriously disturbed for any length of time. That which had happened, however much it was to be deplored, belonged to the past, and not all the powers of Heaven and earth combined could alter or undo it. The only thing left him was to face the consequences, and that he was prepared to do.

"It was not a fact, then, that Miss Fenwicke was married?" queried Roden, after a pause.

"The statement was false 

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