Never in his life, it is safe to say, was Major Dundas more surprised than when his orderly thus announced the presence in Brampton barracks of the person last credited with the despatch from this world of the late Mr. Barton.

"Farren?" he repeated. "Sure? What's he like?"

"He wears a long cloak and a soft felt 'at, sir."

"Show him up, then – and look here, keep your eye on him!"

"Yes, sir."

"If it's the same man he's got the cheek of Old Nick himself," muttered the Major; "what the deuce can he want with me? Seems my fate to be lugged into this business."

The Major was in mufti. On his left arm a broad band of black cloth was the outward and visible sign of mourning for his recently deceased cousin. He had undertaken for Miriam all the details of the funeral – the conveyance of the body to Lesser Thorpe and the interring of it in the family vault. And this he had done with all due respect and solemnity. But in his heart he was obliged to confess that the events of the past few weeks had caused him in every way the greatest possible sensation of relief. In the first place Miriam's brother was no longer in this world to pester her or anyone else, and he had been the sort of man from whom there could be no feeling of riddance on this side of the grave. For Gerald he was sorry – he pitied him just so much as one pities any man who is the victim of his own mad folly. But his death could be counted a loss to no one. On the contrary, it was bound to bring with it a distinct feeling of relief, because the Major was no hypocrite, and he never attempted to disguise from himself that the one object of his life now was to make Miriam his wife – and had indeed been so for long past. Her absurd scruples on the subject of divorce he had felt no sympathy with – the most he had been able to do was to respect them. She having returned to the flat, he had seen very little – all too little of her recently. But she had not been alone, for the good heart of Mrs. Parsley had gone out to her in her trouble, with the result that the vicar's wife had taken up her abode at Rosary Mansions during those first weeks of her widowhood. And so were matters progressing as comfortably as the Major could desire when the announcement of this man Farren's presence came as a cold blast upon him.

He put aside the paper he was working at and waited. His welcome was not a cordial one. But at this his visitor was wholly unmoved. He sat down uninvited and looked calmly at his host. Indeed, he forced Dundas to open the ball.

"Well, Mr. Farren, what do you want with me?"

"Can you not surmise that, friend, without my telling?"

"Damn it, sir, don't call me your friend, or you'll find I'm a precious unpleasant one."

"It is a mere figure of speech, friend. The world is cold – there is no friendship – no love. I come not for love but for money!"

"What – confound you, man, what do you mean?"

"The meaning is simple, Major Dundas. I am no extorter. I come to plead your sympathy – to plead it not, I trust, in vain, when you have heard my story, for there are many things about which I alone know the truth. I alone know who killed your uncle!"

"Well, that you certainly should from all accounts. But upon my soul I marvel at your brazen impudence in coming here to tell me so – and I suppose to excuse yourself. Doesn't it strike you that I have been unusually forbearing in taking no part against you!"

"I am no slayer of men, friend. I did not slay your uncle! I come to tell you who did."

"You'll have to do more than tell me, I fancy, before I believe you."

"First let me state for what it is I sue. It is small, friend, what I ask – sufficient only to restore me to the land whence I come; a mere matter of a hundred pounds."

"I —I am to give you a hundred pounds!"

"'Twill rid you of me for ever, friend – 'twill rid you of all mention of the past. It is not a large amount."

The Major scrutinised him closely for a moment. He began to think the man was queer. But there was something about him which compelled attention. In the first place he bore the stamp of breeding – in the second he piqued curiosity. The Major came to the conclusion that whatever he was, he was no ruffian.

"Go on," he said, "let me hear your story. But look sharp about it."

He fixed his dreamy eyes upon the Major for quite a minute before he began.

"Years ago, friend, you had an aunt, Flora Barton. You will have heard of her. I loved her. She was to me the sweetest soul on earth. No dolphin in Galatea's train more blithe and gay than I, who thought to call her mine. But, alas! the goods of this world I had not, though she was blest with them, and more. Your uncle George, whose death we now deplore, swore she should not be mine. He exhorted me to withdraw. But I loved truly and deeply, and by my love I was being consumed beyond all heed of lucre; so that his exhortations were in vain – in vain, friend, in vain. And as he saw that this was so, he changed, and was to me as a true friend. And I rejoiced within me then, and was filled with joy. Ah, friend, what days were those! What happiness was mine. But all too soon the glory of my day was clouded and I fell. Yes, fell to crime. Like Orestes, I had appealed to Pythias, and Pythias had spurned me. I knew not where to go for money, for I had gambled, and I owed a goodly sum. And so I did that which has cursed my life – I wrote another's name – in the language of these days, good sir, I forged. I forged! I forged! I forged the name of George Barton! No sooner had I done the fatal deed than I saw what it meant, and regretted it a thousand times. But I could not give her up. Together we took wing and fled. He followed, and my freedom was vouchsafed to me on one condition – that I gave up my love. Alas, what could I do? And so we parted, my love and I – she to the home whence she had come, there to join her life in time with one Arkel, the father of the lad who but a few short weeks ago died – I to the far-away land chosen for my exile. But she, the flower of flowers, still remembered our love. She avenged our parting; for she wrecked the life of him who had parted us. She came between him and his love. She ruined him – devastated his life so that he was stricken with disease of the brain, and suffered some of the tortures which I too have suffered."

"But much of this is ancient history to me," interrupted the Major. "Get on to the gist of the thing."

"May I not tell the story of my life in my own way? To Australia then I went, and there for a score of years I stayed. And as with time the wound in my heart healed I married, and children were born to me. Then death came, and my wife was taken from me, and I put the past behind me and returned to this land. But in that whence I had come I had found a way to Paradise – a way to drown the past and revel in the present. I had learned to love the poppy. It became the emblem of my later life – the anodyne of every sorrow. I sought it here, for life without opium was no longer possible. I found it at the hands of one Mother Mandarin – "

"What, you too, then, know that old hag!"

"Beneath her roof I have dreamed the sweetest dreams, beside her – a very Jezebel – I dwelt for long in Paradise. But now I am in Hell. They chase me constantly, relentlessly. But so far They have not caught me. Horror! when they do! Your uncle, too, loved his opium. We met there, and I came to understand him more. Twin sister to his love for opium was his love for crime. He had a passion for its mysteries, and lacked only the courage of a past master. He probed in the depths – together we probed in the depths – he paying me. I was a seeker of criminals for him. It was my work to hunt them out and bring them to him as to one who was an appreciator. For the fulfilling of my task he paid me three hundred pounds a year. He used to say he longed to kill – to be a spiller of human blood."

"Man – you're mad!"

"Small wonder if I were – but I am not. These things that I tell you are true, friend. Your uncle was the criminal's comrade. He sheltered him and paid large sums of money to his kind. I was his tool in this as all through life. At Lesser Thorpe I used to visit him. I was there that Christmas night when Nemesis o'ertook him, and he met with death at the hand of one of those whom he so sought. No soul knew I was there. But I knew all – of Miriam Crane – of Jabez Crane – of Gerald Arkel, aye, and of yourself. For I had been set my task and had fulfilled it, and the secret of Miriam Crane's past life was in my keeping and in my master's. I knew her brother for a murderer – he had killed a sergeant in your regiment."

"I know – I know all about that – go on."

"Softly, friend. As he had held me for so many years so did Barton hold Miriam Crane – in his power – in the hollow of his hand. So did he hold Jabez Crane, who too loved the drug. We met at Mother Mandarin's. And now I approach what you would know. The grandson of the woman Mandarin was a thief – an expert criminal. He heard speak of Lesser Thorpe, and Barton, and Jabez, and his sister. And he took himself down there to find what he could find. He made excuse of going at Jabez' bidding to warn his sister he would come. His name was Shorty. He was the genius of evil. He was the accomplice of Jabez in many crimes."

"I know they tried to rob my uncle one night on Waterloo Bridge," put in the Major, who, in spite of himself, was becoming excited. The man's narrative, strange as it was, was beginning to convince him.

"I watched this sinful youth, for I knew his lust for gold. On Christmas night I took me to the Manor House to warn George Barton of that which I knew threatened him. But, as I learned, all too late, Shorty followed me. He concealed himself behind a buttress near the library window and heard our converse there. And when I left he entered and hid himself away, for I left and entered always by the window on the terrace, so that no soul should know."

"But how, man? – how could he get into the library while you and my uncle were there without your seeing him?"

"In this way. Your uncle, deep in converse with me, came to the end of the terrace. He was wont to walk out there. It was then the lad got in. When your uncle, unsuspecting of evil, returned, he returned alone and to his desk. I took my way down the steps into the village whence I had come. Before I had left him I had warned him that with Shorty in the village he knew not the hour he might be robbed. And he meant to act next day upon my warning. Then the boy came from his hiding-place and demanded money. Had I returned with your uncle the lad would have remained there till I left. Your uncle did not heed his demands, but cried for help. That cry it was that killed him. The lad threw himself upon him to silence him. He clutched at that old throat and clutched too hard. When he clutched no more your uncle was dead! Here, friend, is the verification of what I have told you."

He produced a dirty sheet of paper from his pocket. On it were written but three lines. But they were all sufficient to condemn the man who put his name to them.

"But the creature surely could not write," objected the Major.

"Mine is the writing, friend; his the signature. 'Twas Miriam Crane taught him to write that. Show it to her."

"But how did you get this confession out of him? – it's difficult to believe – "

"It was difficult to obtain, friend. No one but myself could have procured it. Myself alone did that boy fear. I had broken his nerve. In drink one night, not many weeks ago, he came to me, forgetting himself so far as to threaten me and demand of me money, accusing me of having killed your uncle. At once I knew then it was he who had killed him. I had suspected him for long. He told me he was there and had seen me in the library. But I was not to be thus threatened by this youth. We were alone. It was night. I locked the door and taxed him with the crime. He would not confess. But I knew the lad; I alone knew Shorty and the only way with him. In the grate there burned a fire, and by the hearth a poker stood – 'twas easy made red-hot, and – "

"Good God, man, don't describe to me your loathsome horrors. Have done with your story and go."

"Well, that was how, friend, I came by this confession. I told him while he lived I would not use it for his undoing. In truth I could not, since my own past is not clean. But now that he is dead he cannot suffer in this world for his crimes. I alone am left. Your uncle ruined me, friend. I hated him. All my life I hated him. He sapped my soul; he was a vampire. I ask you now to help me to end my days in such peace as is left to me. I am without money. I wish to leave this country and return to the land of my exile. The Mark of the Beast is on me, and I am getting old. My end will come soon now, and I shall join your uncle, and Jabez Crane, and Shorty, and all our other kindred souls in Hell; down there, deep down in Hell. Already I have tasted of its fires – but they have not caught me yet; They chase me all the time, but They – "

The Major stopped him.

"If I give you money," he said, "I give it you in this way: fifty pounds and your passage to Australia. Never again set foot in this country. I may be wrong; but I believe your story, and I would wipe out once for all the memory of it. I am sorry for you, Farren. Give me some address, and what I have promised you shall follow. But remember if I catch you in this country that's the end of you."

"Thanks be to you," he said. Then he scribbled a few words on a piece of paper, and took up his hat and cloak and vanished.

EPILOGUE

John Dundas was as good as his word, and within a fortnight of his visit to Brampton the unhappy Farren was on board an Oriental liner bound for Melbourne.

As the Major read his name in the passenger list, he breathed a sigh of relief. For with him disappeared all record of the past. He felt convinced the creature – queer in the head as he undoubtedly was – had told him nothing but the truth. His life story was indeed a pitiful one, and the Major would not but admit that there was something of retributory justice about the fate which had overtaken his old uncle. For that he had met his death by Shorty's hand there was not a doubt. Miriam had been shown the signature appended to those three lines of confession – confession absolute and unqualified – and she had recognised it instantly.

There remained no doubt in the Major's mind. As he had told Miriam, the whole affair was horribly repellent to him. The remotest connection with such men as Jabez, Shorty, and Farren ran counter to every instinct he possessed. He alone among his contaminated stock recoiled from the merest contact with the morbid. Gerald, in his bouts of alcoholism, had always shown that he was attracted in that direction. Even when most himself that side of him had been plainly apparent to any keen observer.

And so the Major thanked his stars that things were as they were. His hundred pounds had been well spent, indeed if it had purchased in the future complete immunity from all reference to the terrible past. So far as Farren was concerned he felt perfectly safe. It was not difficult to foretell his end. It would be speedy. And the Major knew enough of Melbourne even to localise it with some degree of accuracy. That fair city of the south possesses in its heart the foulest opium dens outside of China. It would be in one of them – in that fœtid artery named Little Bourke Street – that Farren would die; and with him would disappear the last of what the Major was wont to refer to in his own mind always as the Lambeth gang.

From time to time he caught a glimpse of Miriam; anything from an hour to two hours constituting merely a glimpse in the eyes of the Major. Each time he told himself she was more beautiful than before; and for the first time in his life a year seemed to contain at least twenty-four calendar months; and all the rifle practice or tactical manœuvres in the world were of no avail to shorten it. Slowly, wearily, it dragged itself along, with now and then a spurt on such days as could furnish him with reasonable excuse for a run up to town – town being bounded on the east by Addison Road and on the west by Hammersmith.

In Mrs. Parsley, had he only known it, he possessed the strongest of allies. If he had needed anyone to plead his cause, he could not have chosen a better.

"My dear, I am just waiting for the day that shall see you Mistress of the Manor House. Won't that be a knock-me-down-staggerer for her?" Such was Mrs. Parsley's leit-motive now, the "her" having, it is scarcely necessary to say, reference to Mrs. Darrow.

"But, my dear Mrs. Parsley," Miriam would remonstrate, "he hasn't – "

"Oh, don't tell me he hasn't if he hasn't, you've only to hold up your little finger for him to have. Why any fool can see he just worships the ground you tread on – not that I ever believe altogether in that sort of thing myself; but my experience of them is they're all the same. It's either that or nothing. Take my word for it, my dear, unless a man's abject, he's not in love, and unless he's in love, he'll never make a good husband. Now the Major is in love – he is abject, horribly abject. And of all the men I've known he's the most promising as a husband. I do believe he is a thoroughly good fellow."

"I know, I know, my dear Mrs. Parsley; there is no better fellow in the world. But you seem to take it quite as – well, what shall I say? – quite as necessary to my existence that I should have a husband. Does it not occur to you that I might like a little freedom – that my first experience of matrimony has not been altogether encouraging?"

"Freedom! Encouraging? – rubbish! What does a woman want with freedom, except to get into captivity again? As for encouragement, no one ought to require much encouragement to grab a good thing when they see it. John Dundas, matrimonially speaking, is a good thing, and if it weren't for the Reverend Augustine, I tell you candidly I'd soon show you I mean what I say!"

"Oh, my dear friend, this love, this love!" sighed Miriam, "this keep the world a-whirling! – well, I suppose you're right. You know it is not that I underrate Major Dundas' good qualities. I do not. I know he is a good man, and I like him and respect him more than I can say; but – but – "

"But – but – there you go! you're thinking about that wretched past of yours again. Well, tell him, tell him everything; he'll think none the less of you for that!"

"Indeed I have; he knows everything of my wretched past. It is not that – "

"Well, what is it then?"

"Oh, I don't know – let us leave it. It will settle itself I expect if it's meant to be settled. Meanwhile, we're quite happy, you and I, aren't we?"

"Oh yes, we're very happy, Miriam, with our work. That reminds me that old Chinese Mandarin creature's dead at last."

"Really? Poor old thing! When did she die?"

"Yesterday morning. The place is becoming quite respectable now – a veritable land of promise. And that reminds me again I have to go down there in the morning to finish up one or two things, and in the afternoon, dear, you know I am going back to Thorpe. Augustine's got a cold, and you know what Augustine is with a cold!"

"Poor Mr. Parsley – he is very good. I sometimes think I should like to change places with you, and go down and look after him while you're looking after Lambeth," said Miriam, just to see how she would take it.

"Indeed, my dear, you'll do nothing of the kind. You'd spoil him altogether, that's what you'd do. I understand Augustine and he understands me. He'd break out in all sorts of fresh places with any other treatment than what I give him. Besides, he likes to be alone – he always says I'm the only woman he could stand. Not that he means it, you know – he doesn't. He thinks all women a nuisance, except when he's ill – then he's glad enough to have 'em, I can tell you. Now, dear, I must really go. I shall have tea at the Stores. Who's that at the door I wonder? – let me get out of sight. Good-bye, Miriam dear."

She kissed her and hurried off. They were in the dining-room. Miriam remained where she was, awaiting the announcement of her visitor whoever it might prove to be.

The name brought in to her was that of "Mrs. Latham."

"Mrs. Latham?" she repeated to herself. "I don't know any Mrs. Latham."

She went into the little drawing-room. Her visitor was closely veiled and in the deepest black. She looked at her.

"You don't know me, Miriam?"

"Hilda! Is it you? Mrs. Latham! – but – "

"Yes, Miriam, I am Mrs. Latham. But my husband is dead. He died only a month ago!"

"It is only a year since Gerald died."

"Poor Gerald – did he forgive me for leaving him?"

"He never forgot – I cannot say whether he forgave. Your name was last on his lips – not mine!"

"My name? And you were so good to him? Miriam, will you forgive?"

"I – yes, I forgive. It was him you wronged more than me, for I could guide my life – he couldn't. He was weak, helpless – little more than a child. And you led him further astray, Hilda. And yet he loved you as he never loved me, even at the end."

"Oh, Miriam, you don't know what I've suffered. I am not so wholly to blame as you think. You don't know what my life was – from the merest child I was neglected. I was never taught to care save for myself. I was pampered, spoiled, allowed to run utterly wild. My only teaching was to put a value on myself – to see to it that I secured the biggest prize in marriage. You cannot afterwards undo the evil done by an up-bringing such as mine. And my instincts were never for good, Miriam. I secured through John Dundas all that I craved, riches, position, ease, gaiety. And when I lost them, remember, I lost what was to me all. Gerald loved me I know; yes, and I loved him as much as it was in me to love any man. I could not resist the temptation that assailed me. But I was prepared to do my duty by him, Miriam. I would have gone on loving him. I would have been with him at the end – "

"Why, then, did you leave him?"

"Because he forced me to. He drank so horribly. He was like a madman most of the time. He gambled recklessly – more than once he struck me. I stayed by him as long as I could, and then one night he treated me so cruelly I had to leave him. I was afraid for my life. I had already met Mr. Latham. He fell in love with me, and he urged me all the time to leave Gerald. But I would not have left him, I swear to you, if he had not treated me so violently. Mr. Latham was rich I know, and Gerald then had little money left. But it was not that that took me. I was in daily, hourly terror of him. Oh, Miriam, you cannot imagine how he was. That night I tell you of, I left him. I went with Mr. Latham to Italy, and there we were married. He was more than good to me, far better I know than I deserved. I was prepared to make amends for my past life, and at least to be a good wife to him. But fate determined, I suppose, that I should suffer, for he died – died when we had been married only a few months. And now I am alone, and oh, so wretched, Miriam, so terribly unhappy."

She burst into tears.

"Hilda, don't – I, too, am alone. Believe me, I forgive you if it is my forgiveness you would have. You have been wrong; but I was wrong, I think, in the beginning, too – towards Gerald. I ought to have left things to take their chance. But what I did, I did to save him. For that I was punished. God knows what I have suffered. But, come now, even though you are alone, you have your father and mother – "

"My father and mother! Don't name them to me. I hate them. To them I owe the whole failure of my life. They had no right to bring children into the world, and allow them to grow up weeds. I wish never to see either of them again. No, I am going back to Italy. I shall find some niche to fill there I suppose. But I could not stay here. All I wanted was to know that you forgave me. You have been so good, Miriam, and if you forgive me, I can bear the rest. And, Miriam – "

"Yes, Hilda."

"You will marry John Dundas? Don't be angry with me, but if you are happy, I should feel my life was easier. John is good, Miriam, he is one of the best of men – I never deserved him. You do. Let me feel that you won't – that the past won't stand in your way. He deserves to be happy."

"He has been very good to me, Hilda, very kind. I know what you must feel. Let us both try and forget."

"Say again that you forgive me, Miriam."

"Freely, Hilda. I forgive."

"Good bye. You will write and tell me – any news?"

"I will write, Hilda; good-bye."

As she left the room Miriam could bear up no longer. She threw herself on the sofa, and cried as if her heart would break.

Six months later, in the lovely summer weather, Dundas and Miriam were wandering through the gardens of the Manor House together – man and wife. In the little church over yonder, fraught to Miriam with so many memories, they had been married by the Reverend Augustine, now four months ago. And even Mrs. Darrow, open enemy though she declared herself, had not contrived to spoil their peace. Dicky, it is true, had been permitted to attend the wedding of his Miss Crane, but Mrs. Darrow herself had remained adamant, and stayed at home to nurse her rage and show her great displeasure.

And with the glorious peace and rest which had now come into her life, Miriam felt at last her night was over – the heavy shades had lifted, and the dawn was brightening to a golden noon. Her faith in God was justified to her even in this world.

Her husband turned, and asked her what he never tired of asking:

"Are you happy, Miriam?"

"Happy, dear? So happy! – happier than I have ever been or ever thought to be!"