William Le Queux (continued 3)

I recollected Mabel’s long absence, and remembered that one does not get grass on one’s shoes in Kensington.

The shoes were of French make, stamped with the name of “Pinet.” They were thin-soled, and the high Louis XV heels were slightly worn on one side.

Breathlessly I took them to the window, and, in the grey light, examined them scrupulously. They coincided exactly with the pair the detectives were searching for, the wearer of which they declared was the person who stabbed George Travers to the heart!

The dried clay and the blades of grass were positive proof that Mabel had walked somewhere besides on London pavements.

Could she really have murdered her brother? A terrible suspicion entered my soul, although I strove to resist it, endeavouring to bring myself to believe that such a thought was absolutely absurd; but at length, fearing detection, I found a brush and removed the mud with my own hands.

Then I walked through the flat and entered the room where Mabel was soundly sleeping. At the foot of the bed something white had fallen. Picking it up, I discovered it was a handkerchief.

A second later it fell from my nerveless grasp. It had dark, stiff patches upon it—the ugly stains of blood!

The one thought that took possession of me was of Mabel’s guilt. Yet she gave me no cause for further suspicion, except, indeed, that she eagerly read all the details as “written up” in those evening papers that revel in sensation.

George was buried, his house was sold, and his widow went with her children to live at Alversthorpe Hall, old Mr Travers’ place in Cumberland.

Mabel appeared quite as inconsolable as the bereaved wife.

“Do you believe the police will ever find the murderer?” she asked me one evening, when we were sitting alone.

“I really can’t tell, dear,” I replied, noticing how haggard and serious was her face as she gazed fixedly into the fire.

“Have—have they discovered anything?” she inquired hesitatingly.

“Yes,” I answered. “They found the marks of a woman’s shoes upon the lawn.”

She started visibly and held her breath.

“Ah!” she gasped; “I—I thought they would. I knew it—I knew—”

Then, sighing, she drew her hand quickly across her brow, and, rising, left me abruptly.

About two months afterwards, Mabel and I went down to Alversthorpe on a visit, and as we sat at dinner on the evening of our arrival, Fraulein Steinbock, the new German governess, entered to speak with her mistress.

For a moment she stood behind the widow’s chair, glancing furtively at me. It was very remarkable. Although her features bore not the slightest resemblance to any I had ever seen before, they seemed somehow familiar. It was not the expression of tenderness and purity of soul that entranced me, but there was something strange about the forehead. The dark hair in front had accidentally been parted, disclosing what appeared to be a portion of a dark ugly scar!

Chancing to glance at Mabel, I was amazed to notice that she had dropped her knife and fork, and was sitting pale and haggard, with her eyes fixed upon the wall opposite.

Her lips were moving slightly, but no sound came from them.

When, on the following morning, I was chatting with the widow alone, I carelessly inquired about the new governess.

“She was called away suddenly last night. Her brother is dying,” she said.

“Called away!” I echoed. “Where has she gone?”

“To London. I do hope she won’t be long away, for I really can’t do without her. She is so kind and attentive to the children.”

“Do you know her brother’s address?”

She shook her head. Then I asked for some particulars about her, but discovered that nothing was known of her past. She was an excellent governess—that was all.

Twelve months later. One evening I had been busy writing in my own little den, and had left Mabel in the drawing-room reading a novel. It was almost ten o’clock when I rose from my table, and, having turned out my lamp, I went along the passage to join my wife.

Pushing open the door, I saw she had fallen asleep in her little wicker chair.

But she was not alone.

The tall, statuesque form of a woman in a light dress stood over her. The profile of the mysterious visitor was turned towards me. The face wore the same demoniacal expression, it had the same dark, flashing eyes, the same white teeth, that I had seen on that terrible day before Plevna!

As she bent over my sleeping wife, one hand rested on the chair, while the other grasped a gleaming knife, which she held uplifted, ready to strike.

For a moment I stood rooted to the spot; then, next second, I dashed towards her, just in time to arrest a blow that must otherwise have proved fatal.

She turned on me ferociously, and fought like a wild animal, scratching and biting me viciously. Our struggle for the weapon was desperate, for she seemed possessed of superhuman strength. At last, however, I proved victor, and, wrenching the knife from her bony fingers, flung it across the room.

Meanwhile Mabel awoke, and, springing to her feet, recognised the unwelcome guest.

“See!” she cried, terrified. “Her face! It is the face of the man I met on the night George was murdered!”

So distorted were the woman’s features by passion and hatred, that it was very difficult to recognise her as Fraulein Steinbock, the governess.

In a frenzy of madness she flew across to Mabel, but I rushed between them, and by sheer brute force threw her back upon an ottoman, where I held her until assistance arrived. I was compelled to clutch her by the throat, and as I forced her head back, the thick hair fell aside from her brow, disclosing a deep, distinct mark upon the white flesh—a bluish-grey ring in the centre of her forehead.

Screaming hysterically, she shouted terrible imprecations in some language I was unable to understand; and eventually, after a doctor had seen her, I allowed the police to take her to the station, where she was charged as a lunatic.

It was many months before I succeeded in gleaning the remarkable facts relating to her past. It appears that her real name was Dàrya Goltsef, and she was the daughter of a Cossack soldier, born at Darbend, on the Caspian Sea. With her family she led a nomadic life, wandering through Georgia and Armenia, and often accompanying the Cossacks on their incursions and depredations over the frontier into Persia.

It was while on one of these expeditions that she was guilty of a terrible crime. One night, wandering alone in one of the wild mountain passes near Tabreez, she discovered a lonely hut, and, entering, found three children belonging to the Iraks, a wandering tribe of robbers that infest that region.

She was seized with a terrible mania, and in a semi-unconscious state, and without premeditation, she took up a knife and stabbed all three. Some men belonging to the tribe, however, detected her, and at first it was resolved to torture her and end her life; but on account of her youth—for she was then only fifteen—it was decided to place on her forehead an indelible mark, to brand her as a murderess.

It is the custom of the Iraks to brand those guilty of murder; therefore, an iron ring was made red hot, and its impression burned deeply into the flesh.

During the three years that followed, Dàrya was perfectly sane, but it appeared that my friend, Captain Alexandrovitch, while quartered at Deli Musa, in Transcaucasia, killed, in a duel, a man named Peschkoff, who was her lover. The sudden grief at losing the man she loved caused a second calenture of the brain, and, war being declared against Turkey just at that time, she joined the Red Cross Sisters, and went to the front to aid the wounded. I have since remembered that one evening, while before Plevna, I was passing through the camp hospital with Alexandrovitch, when he related to me his little escapade, explaining with happy, careless jest how recklessly he had flirted, and how foolishly jealous Peschkoff had been.

He told me that it was an Englishman who had been travelling for pleasure to Teheran, but whose name he did not remember, that had really been the cause of the quarrel, and laughed heartily, with a Russian’s pride of swordsmanship, as he narrated how evenly matched Peschkoff and he had been.

That just cost my friend his life, for Dàrya must have overheard.

Then the desire for revenge, the mad, insatiable craving for blood that had remained dormant, was again aroused; and, under the weird circumstances already described, she disguised herself as a man, and, entering our tent, murdered Alexandrovitch.

On further investigation, I discovered that the unknown English traveller was none other than George Travers, for in one of the sketchbooks he had carried during his tour in the East, I found a well-executed pencil portrait of the Cossack maiden.

Dàrya’s motive in coming to England was, without doubt, one of revenge, prompted by the terrible aberration from which she was suffering.

Mabel, who had refrained from saying anything regarding the murder of her brother, fearing lest her story should appear absurd, now made an explanation. On the night of the tragedy, she was on her way to the house at Chiswick, and, when near the gates, a well-dressed young man had accosted her, explaining that he was an old friend of George’s recently returned from abroad, and wished to speak with him privately without his wife’s knowledge. He concluded by asking her whether, as a favour, she would show him the way to enter her brother’s room without going in at the front door. The story told by the young man seemed quite plausible, and she led him up to the French windows of the study.

Then she left the stranger, and crossed the lawn to go round to the front door, but at that moment the clock of Chiswick church chimed, and, finding the hour so late, she suddenly resolved to return home.

Later, when she heard of the tragedy, she was horrified to discover that she had actually aided the assassin, but resolved to preserve silence lest suspicion might attach itself to her.

She now identified the distorted features of the madwoman as those of the young man, and when I questioned her with regard to the bloodstained handkerchief, she explained how, in groping about the shrubbery in the dark, she had torn her hand severely on some thorns.

The cloud of suspicion that had rested so long upon Mabel is now removed, and we are again happy.

The carefully-devised plots and the devilish cunning that characterised all the murderess’s movements appeared most extraordinary; nevertheless, in cases such as hers, they are not unheard of. Dàrya is now in Brookwood Asylum, hopelessly insane, for she is still suffering from that most terrible form of madness,—acute homicidal mania,—and is known to the attendants as “The Woman with a Blemish.”

Chapter Seven.

The Sylph of the Terror.

“Ah! you in England, here, are always débonnaire, while we in Charleroi are always triste, always.”

The dark-eyed, handsome girl sighed, lying lazily back among the cushions of the boat, allowing the rudder-lines to hang so loosely that our course became somewhat erratic. I had been spending one of the hot afternoons of last July gossiping and drinking tea on the riverside lawn of a friend’s house at Datchet, and now at sunset had taken for a row this pretty Belgian whom my hostess had introduced as Cécile Demage.

“Is this your first visit to London?” I asked, noticing she spoke English fluently, but with a pleasing accent.

“Oh no,” she replied, laughing. “I have been here already two times. I like your country so very much.”

“And you come here for pleasure—just for a little holiday?”

“Yes,” she answered, lifting her long lashes for an instant. “Of course I travel for—for pleasure always.”

Fixing my eyes upon her steadily, I remained silent, pulling long, slow strokes. The evening was calm and delightful, but the blood-red after-glow no longer reflected on the placid Thames, for already the purple haze was gathering.

“You know many Belgians in London, I suppose?” I said at last.

“Oh dear, no!” she answered, with a rippling laugh, toying with one of her gloves that lay on the cushion beside her. “True, I know some of the people at our Legation; but I come abroad to visit the English, not the Belgians.”

“And you have never visited West Hill, Sydenham, mademoiselle?” I asked, resting upon the oars suddenly, and looking straight into her dark, wide-open eyes.

She started, but next second recovered her self-possession.

“No, not to my knowledge.”

“And have you never met Fedor Nikiforovitch; has he never addressed you by your proper name, Sonia Ostroff?”

The colour left her face instantly, as she started up with a look of abject terror in her eyes.

“M’sieur is of the Secret Police!” she gasped hoarsely, clenching her hands. “Dieu! Then I am betrayed!”

“No,” I answered calmly. “I am aware that mademoiselle is an active member of the Narodnaya Volya, but, I, too, am a friend of the Cause;” and I added a word which signifies indivisibility, and is the recognised password of the Circle of desperate Russian revolutionists to which she belonged. It gave her confidence, and she sank back upon the cushions, questioning me how I had recognised her.

“I heard you were masquerading in London,” I said; “and among other members of the Circle who are here at the present moment are young Paul Tchartkoff, Sergius Karamasoff, and Ivan Petrovitch.”

“But—but who are you, m’sieur, that you should know so much about the Narodnaya Volya? When we were introduced, I failed to catch your name distinctly.”

“My name is Andrew Verney, and I am an English journalist.”

“Andrew Verney! Ah! of course I have heard of you many times! You were the English newspaper correspondent who, while living at Warsaw, became one of Us, and wrote articles to your journal advocating the emancipation of our country and the inviolability of the individual and of his rights as a man. You assisted us in bringing our case vividly before the English people, and in raising money to carry on the propaganda. But, alas! the iron hand of the Minister of the Interior fell upon you.”

“Yes,” I said, laughing; “I was expelled with a cancelled passport, and an intimation from the Press Bureau at Petersburg that whatever I wrote in future would not be allowed to enter Russia.”

Our boat was drifting, so I bent again to the oars, and rowed back to the lawn of our hostess.

The beautiful girl, who, lolling back upon the saddlebags, commenced to chatter in French about mutual friends in Warsaw, in Moscow, and in Petersburg, was none other than Sonia Ostroff, known to every Nihilist in and out of Russia as “The Sylph of the Terror.” Her slim figure, her childish face, her delicate complexion and charming dimples made her appear little more than a girl; yet I well knew how her bold, daring schemes had caused the Tzar Alexander to tremble. The daughter of a wealthy widow moving in the best society in Petersburg, she had become imbued with convictions that had induced her to join the Nihilists. From that moment she had become one of their most active members, and on the death of her mother, devoted all the money she inherited to the Cause. Many were the remarkable stories I had heard of the manner in which she had arranged attempts upon the lives of the Tzar and his Ministers; how, on one occasion, with extraordinary courage, she had taken the life of a police spy with her own hand; and how cleverly she had always managed to elude the vigilance of the ubiquitous agents of the Third Section of the Ministry of the Interior. Yet, as she laughed lightly, and pulled the rudder-line sharply, bringing us up to the steps before our hostess’s house, few would have suspected Cécile Demage, the chic, flippant daughter of a Belgian mine-owner, to be the same person as Sonia Ostroff, the renowned “Sylph of the Terror,” who spent greater part of her time in hiding from the police in the underground cellar of a presumably disused house near the Ekaterinski in Petersburg.

Half an hour later we were sitting opposite each other at dinner, where she shone brilliantly as a conversationalist. Several persons were present who had met her in society in Brussels; but none suspected the truth—I alone held her secret.

When later that night we bade each other farewell at Waterloo Station, she managed to whisper, “I shall be at Fedor’s on Thursday night at nine. Meet me there. Do not fail.”

“Very well,” I replied; and, allowing her well-gloved hand to rest in mine for a moment, she bade me au revoir, entered a cab, and was driven away.

As I walked into Fedor Nikiforovitch’s handsomely-furnished drawing-room at Sydenham to keep my appointment, my host rose to greet me. He was tall, thin and slightly bent by age. In Warsaw I had known him as an active revolutionist, and, indeed, the men who were with him—Tchartkoff, Petrovitch, and Karamasoff—were a trio of daring fellows, who, alone and unaided, had committed many startling outrages. Several others were in the room, and among them I noticed two ladies, Mascha Karelin and Vera Irteneff, whom I had frequently met at secret meetings of the Circle at Warsaw.

“Sonia told me you were coming,” Fedor said gayly. “This is the final council. The attempt will be made to-morrow,” he added in a whisper.

“The attempt? What do you mean?” I asked.

“It will all be explained in due course,” he said, turning away to greet another member who at that moment arrived.

In a few moments, Sonia, in a striking evening toilet, and wearing a magnificent diamond necklet, entered smiling, being greeted enthusiastically on every hand. We exchanged a few words, then, when every one was seated in silent expectancy, “The Sylph of the Terror” took up a position on the tiger’s skin stretched before the hearth. The door having been closed, and precautions taken so that there should be no eavesdroppers at the windows that overlooked the flower-garden at the rear, in clear, distinct tones she addressed the assemblage in Russian as “Fellow-councillors of the Narodnaya Volya.” She referred to the manifesto of the Narodnoe Pravo, and said, “Autocracy, after receiving its most vivid expression and impersonation in the reign of the present Tzar, has with irrefutable clearness proved its impotence to create such an order of things as should secure our country the fullest and most regular developments of all her spiritual and material forces.” Then, with a fire of enthusiasm burning in her dark, flashing eyes, she referred to the thousands of political prisoners, many of them their own relatives and friends, who had been banished without trial to Siberia, to rot in the dreaded silver mines of Nerchinsk, or die of fever in the filthy étapes of the Great Post Road.

“Desperate cases require desperate remedies,” she continued, glancing around her small audience. “Hundreds of our innocent comrades are at this moment being arrested in Warsaw, and hurried off to the Trans-Baikál without trial, merely because Gourko desires to curry favour with his Imperial master.”

“Shame!” they cried, with one accord.

“He must die,” ejaculated Fedor.

“Shall we allow our brothers and our sisters to be snatched from us without raising a hand to save them?” she asked excitedly. “No. Long enough have we been idle. To-morrow, here, in London, we shall strike such a blow for the liberty of Russia that the world will be convulsed.”

“All is ready, sister,” Fedor observed. “The arrangements for escape are perfect. By midnight to-morrow we shall have separated, and not even the bloodhounds of the Third Section will be able to trace us.”

“Then let us see the shell,” she said. Walking over to a bookcase, he touched a spring, and part of one of the rows of books flew open, disclosing a secret cupboard behind. The backs of the books were imitations, concealing a spacious niche, from which the Nihilist drew forth a thick volume about seven inches long by five wide, bound in black cloth. It was an imitation of a popular edition of Charles Lamb’s works.

The bomb was in the form of a book!

Sonia, into whose delicate hands he gave it, examined it critically, with a grim smile of satisfaction, then placed it carefully upon a little Moorish coffee-stool at her side.

“It is excellently made, excites no suspicion, and reflects the greatest credit upon you, Fedor. You are indeed a genius!” she said, laughing. Then, seriously, she asked, “Is every one present prepared to sacrifice his or her life in this attempt?”

“We are,” they answered, with one accord.

“I think, then, that we are all agreed both as to the necessity of this action, as well as to the manner the coup shall be accomplished. In order that each one’s memory shall be refreshed, I will briefly repeat the arrangements. To-morrow night, punctually at eight o’clock, the man condemned to die will visit the Lyceum Theatre, entering by the private door in Burleigh Street. The person using the shell must stand at the Strand corner of that street, and the blow must be delivered just as the carriage turns from the Strand, so that in the crowd in the latter thoroughfare escape may be easy. It must be distinctly remembered, however, that the personage to be ‘removed’ will occupy the second carriage—not the first.”

“Will he be alone?” asked the dark-bearded ruffianly fellow I knew as Sergius Karamasoff.

“Yes. We have taken due precautions. Come, let us decide who shall deliver the blow.” And while Fedor wrote a word on a piece of paper, and folding it, placed it with eleven other similar pieces in a Dresden bowl, Sonia Ostroff continued to discuss where they should next meet after the coup. At last it was arranged, upon her suggestion, that they should all assemble at the house of Karamasoff in Warsaw at 9 p.m. on the 21st, thus allowing a fortnight in which to get back to Poland.

The scraps of paper were shuffled, and everyone drew, including myself, for I had taken the oath to the revolutionary section of the Narodnaya Volya, and, being present, was therefore compelled to share the risk. Judge my joy, however, on opening mine and finding it a blank! The person to whom the dangerous task fell made no sign, therefore all were unaware who would make the attempt. The strictest secrecy is always preserved in a Nihilist Circle, so that the members are never aware of the identity of the person who commits an outrage.

But the business of the secret council was over, the cunningly-concealed bomb was removed to a place where it was not likely to be accidentally knocked down, and the remainder of the evening passed in pleasant conversation. I had become fascinated by Sonia’s beauty, and when I found myself sitting alone with her in a corner of the room where we could not be overheard, I whispered into her ear words of love and tenderness. She, on her part, seemed to have no aversion to a mild flirtation, and admitted frankly that she had pleasant recollections of the sunset hour upon the Thames.

“Who is the man condemned to death?” I asked presently.

“What! are you unaware?” she exclaimed in surprise. “Why, the Tzarevitch.”

“The Tzarevitch? And you intend to murder him?”

She shrugged her shoulders, replying, “We have followed him here because he is not so closely guarded as in Petersburg. If we succeed, there will be no heir-apparent, for the Grand Duke George is already dying in the Caucasus, and the days of the autocrat Alexander are numbered. He will die sooner than the world imagines.”

The flippant manner in which she spoke of death appalled me; nevertheless, when I bade her farewell, I was deeply in love with her, and promised to be in the vicinity of the scene of the tragedy on the morrow.

I knew all the details of this desperate plot to kill the Russian heir-apparent—then on a brief visit to London with his fiancée—yet I dared not inform the police, for the terrible vengeance of the Circle was always swift and always fatal. Helpless to avert the calamity, I passed the long day in breathless anxiety, dreading the fatal moment when the blow would be struck. By some strange intuition, I felt that my every action was watched by emissaries of the Nihilists, who feared treachery on my part, for, as a journalist, I was personally acquainted with a number of officers at Scotland Yard. Hour by hour I strove to devise some plan by which I might prevent the foul murder that was about to be perpetrated; but, alas! no solution of the problem presented itself. The plans had been laid with such care and forethought, that undoubtedly the Tzarevitch would fall a victim, and Russia would be plunged into mourning.

At length twilight deepened into night, and as I walked from Charing Cross down the noisy, bustling Strand, the gas lamps were already alight, and the queues were forming outside the theatres. On passing the steps leading to Exeter Hall, I was startled by a hand being laid upon my arm, and found beside me an elderly woman, poorly-clad, wearing a faded and battered bonnet, with a black, threadbare shawl wrapped around her.

“You have not failed, then?” she exclaimed in low tones, that in an instant I recognised.

“You, Sonia? And in this disguise!” I cried.

“Hush! or we may be overheard!” she said quickly. “The choice fell upon me, but—but I have had a fainting fit, caused by over-excitement, and I cannot trust myself;” and she caused me to walk back and turn up Exeter Street, a short and practically deserted thoroughfare close by.

“Think, are not the risks too great?” I urged. “Why not abandon this attempt?”

“I have sworn to make it,” she answered determinedly.

“And the others—where are they?”

“An alarm has been raised. Baranoff, the chief of the Third Section, suspects, and is in London in search of us. We have all left England, with the exception of Karamasoff, who remains to witness the attempt, and make a report to the council.”

“And you will risk your life and liberty by endeavouring to strike this murderous blow, of which you do not feel yourself physically capable? For my sake, Sonia, defer the attempt until another occasion.”

“I cannot, even though you love me;” and her slim fingers tightened upon mine. Then, a second later, she clasped her hands to her forehead, and, reeling, would have fallen, had I not supported her.

“How—how very foolish I am!” she said, a few moments later. “Forgive me.” Then, as she steadied herself and strolled slowly by my side, she suddenly asked earnestly—

“Do you really love me, Andrew?”

“I do,” I answered fervently.

“Then dare you—dare you, for my sake, Andrew—dare you throw the bomb?” she whispered hoarsely.

Her suggestion startled me. I halted amazed.

“I—I could not—I really could not,” I stammered.

“Ah! it is as I thought—you do not love me,” she said reproachfully. “But it is time I took up my position at the next corner. If I die, it will be because you refused your assistance. Farewell!”

Before I could detain her, she had turned into the Strand, and was lost among the bustling crowd. Hurrying, I overtook her before she gained the corner of Burleigh Street.

“I have changed my mind, Sonia,” I said. “Give it to me; I will act in your stead. Fly to a place of safety, and I will meet you in Warsaw on the day appointed.”

From beneath her shawl she carefully handed me the bomb. It was heavy, weighing fully eight pounds. Slipping it into the capacious pocket of the covert coat I was wearing, I stood at the street corner. Sonia refused to leave, declaring that she would remain to witness the death of the son of the Autocrat.

Trembling and breathless, I stood dreading the fatal moment, knowing that my pocket contained sufficient picric acid to wreck the whole street.

Seconds seemed hours.

“As soon as you have thrown it, fly for your life,” urged Sonia. Then we remained silent in watchful readiness.

Suddenly, almost before we were aware of it, one of the Marlborough House carriages dashed round the corner past us, and drew up before the small door at the rear of the Lyceum. It was an exciting moment. Without hesitation I took out the deadly missile, and none too soon, indeed, for a second later the Tzarevitch’s carriage followed, and just as it passed, I hurled it with all my force against the wheels. Turning, I dashed away across to the opposite side of the Strand, and was there overtaken, a few seconds later, by Sonia and Karamasoff.

“It has not exploded!” they panted, in one breath.

“No,” I said. “How do you account for it?”

“The tube of acid has not broken,” Karamasoff said. “I predicted failure when I saw it. But let us go. Sooner or later a horse will kick it, or a wheel will pass over it, and then—pouf!”

“Farewell,” I said, and we hurriedly separated, each going in a different direction, both of my companions momentarily expecting to hear a terrific report.

But they were disappointed, for a quarter of an hour later I dropped Nikiforovitch’s bomb into the Thames from Waterloo Bridge, and next day an urchin was rewarded with a shilling for bringing to my chambers a copy of Lamb’s works. It was sadly soiled and damaged, but bore on its fly-leaf my name and address. He said he had found it in the gutter in Burleigh Street!

Events have occurred rapidly since that memorable evening. The Tzarevitch, unaware of how near he was to a swift and terrible death, is now Nicholas II of Russia; while the pretty Sonia Ostroff, still in ignorance of how her plot was thwarted, is at the present moment toiling in the gloomy depths of the Savenski mine in Eastern Siberia.

Chapter Eight.

One Woman’s Sin.

Frith Street is the centre of the foreign quarter of London. The narrow, shabby thoroughfare retains, even on the brightest day in summer, its habitual depressing air of grimy cheerlessness; but enveloped in the yellow fog of a November evening, its aspect is unutterably dismal. Its denizens are a very shady colony, mostly the scum of Continental cities, who, owing to various causes, have been compelled to flee from the police and seek a safe asylum in the region between Shaftesbury Avenue and Oxford Street.

In a meagrely furnished sitting-room on the top floor of one of the dingiest houses in this mean street, a young man sat gazing moodily into the fire. He was of foreign appearance, about twenty-six years of age—tall, dark, and rather good-looking. His negligence of attire gave him a dash of the genial good-for-nothing, yet his pale face wore a grave, thoughtful expression, as his chin rested upon his hand in an utterly dejected attitude.

Beside him, with her hand placed tenderly upon his shoulder, stood a tall, fair-haired woman several years his junior. She was eminently beautiful, with delicately-moulded features and soft grey eyes that betrayed an intense anxiety. It was evident that she was not an inhabitant of that dismal quarter, for the hat she wore was of the latest French mode, her cloak, which had fallen unheeded to the floor, was heavily lined with sable, while upon her hand were several fine rings, that gleamed and sparkled in the feeble rays of the solitary candle.

“But, Paul, why cannot you remain? Here in London you are safe,” she argued, speaking in French, and bending over him with earnestness.

“Impossible,” he replied, shaking his head gloomily. “It is unsafe to stay here. I must start for America to-morrow.”

“And leave me?” she cried. “No, no; we must not part. You know how madly I love you;” and she smoothed his hair tenderly.

“Ah, Adine,” he sighed, “Heaven knows, mine will be a bitter sorrow!”

Taking her hand, he raised it reverently to his lips. In the silence that followed, the bells of a neighbouring church chimed slowly.

“Seven o’clock!” she exclaimed suddenly. “I must go at once, for I have invited some people to dine at the hotel. Come now, promise me you will not leave London. You are quite safe here, in this place. Besides, what have you to fear?”

“The police are searching all over Europe for me.”

“Do not be discouraged—we shall baffle them yet. I shall return to-morrow afternoon at four, when we can discuss matters further. Be cheerful for my sake, Paul;” and she bent and kissed him.

“Ah, Adine, you are my only friend,” he said brokenly. “I am tired of being hunted from place to place, and have been thinking that away in Mexico or Argentina I might be safe.”

“But you are not going. We shall not part,” she said decisively.

As she spoke, she picked up her cloak and wrapped it about her. Then, shaking hands with him, and lingering for a moment in his embrace, while he kissed her passionately, she opened the door and passed down the rickety stairs to the street.

Paul Denissoff did not offer to accompany her, but stood listening to her retreating footsteps, afterwards sighing heavily and flinging himself back again into his chair, where he sat staring aimlessly at the meagre fire.

It was nearly midnight. In a cozy and well-furnished private room at the Savoy Hotel, Adine, whose guests had departed, was sitting alone with her slippered feet upon the fender, reading. She had exchanged her dinner-dress for a loose gown of pearl-grey silk, and her hair, unbound, fell in rich profusion about her shoulders. Presently her French maid entered noiselessly, and asked—

“Will mademoiselle require anything more?”

“No, not to-night, Ninette,” she replied, glancing up from her novel.

“Bon soir, madame,” exclaimed the girl, and withdrew.

When she had gone, Adine took a cigarette from her silver case, and, lighting it, lay back in her chair in a lazy, contemplative attitude, watching the blue smoke curl upward. For nearly half an hour she sat engrossed in her own thoughts, when suddenly the door was thrown open. Turning, she saw a middle-aged, well-dressed man, wearing the conventional silk hat and overcoat.

“Colonel Solovieff!” she gasped, jumping to her feet.

“Yes,” said the intruder coolly, as he closed the door and turned the key. “I have the honour to bear that name. And you? I need not ask, Madame Adine Orlovski, subject of my Imperial master, the Tzar.”

Pale, trembling, and with teeth clenched, she felt in the pocket of her dress, and drew forth something bright and shining. It was a small revolver.

“No, no,” exclaimed the colonel, laying his hand upon her arm. “Put away that toy. Remember that I am chief of the English Section of Secret Police, and to shoot me will not be a profitable pastime. I shall not harm you.”

“Why do you intrude here, at this hour?” she asked indignantly.

“I come—as your friend.”

“My friend! Dieu! Can you believe that I have forgotten the insult you offered me when we last met? My friend!—you, the chief of the Tzar’s spies!” she cried angrily.

“And you, Nihilist and assassin, eh?” added the other, with a sinister grin. “Well, well, ma belle, we will not speak of such gruesome subjects as the murder of your husband in Petersburg a year ago.”

“My husband?” she gasped. “Have you discovered who murdered him?”

“Ah! then you do not forget the facts? Neither do I. He was found shot through the heart within a hundred yards of his house in the Vosnosenskoi Prospekt. The Third Section of Imperial Police have not been idle, and as a result of their inquiries, a warrant has been issued.”

“For whom?”

“For the arrest of the woman who chooses to call herself Adine Orlovski, on a charge of murdering her husband.”

“Me?” she cried. “Such imputations are infamous!”

“Pray, don’t be alarmed,” continued the colonel, speaking in Russian, and taking a cigarette from the case that lay open on the table. He seated himself, and calmly lit it, saying, “Sit down; I wish to talk to you.”

Breathless with anxiety, she sank into the nearest chair.

“You see,” he began, “it is impossible to escape us. Our agents are everywhere. Outside the hotel at this moment are three officers ready to arrest you—”

“They shall not. I’d—I’d rather kill myself.”

“Very well. You have the means; do so,” he said, with a brutal laugh.

“Ah!” cried the unhappy woman. “You, the chief of the Tzar’s bloodhounds, have tracked me here, and I know that, although I am innocent, it is useless for me to expect or plead for mercy.”

“Yes, madame, the warrant from the Ministry of the Interior enables me to hand you over to the English police. When you are charged before the magistrate to-morrow morning, I shall apply for your extradition. That will be your first stage upon that long, straight road which leads to Siberia. Your dossier at the bureau is complete. Listen; I will relate the details of your crime—”

“No, no! I do not wish to hear,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I am innocent. I admit that I quarrelled with my husband, but I had no thought of such a horrible deed.”

“You confess to the quarrel? Good! Now we may advance a step further,” said the colonel, stretching out his legs and contemplating the end of his cigarette. “I have also discovered that you know something about the recent attempt at the Winter Palace—in fact, I have indisputable proof that you are a Nihilist.”

“Ah! I understand now the depth of your villainy,” she said, with fierce indignation. “The charge of murder is brought against me in order that I may be extradited to Russia and tried as a Nihilist! It is another of your devilish schemes.”

“You are shrewd,” observed the chief of Secret Police, with a grim smile. “But I ought to indicate that I require to know more of the plans of that highly interesting circle of gentlemen who comprise the Revolutionary Executive Committee; and you are the person to furnish it.”

“How can I, when I am not a member of the organisation?”

“To prevaricate is useless. It is only by consenting to become an agent of the Third Section that you can escape arrest and punishment,” he said slowly.

“A police agent?” she gasped. “It would mean death!”

“Ah!—so you are a Revolutionist! I was not mistaken. Very well, I put it plainer. Either you will enter our service, and, while retaining your connection with the Nihilist Circle at Petersburg, disclose their secrets, or I shall execute the warrant. Remember, the Ministry of Police are liberal, and you will be well paid for your information.”

Adine was silent. This man was her enemy, and she saw the deeply-laid plot to secure her conviction and exile to Siberia. The allegations against her of promoting the Nihilist propaganda and taking part in conspiracies were true, and she well knew how easily they could be proved. She had been an active agent in a recent attempt to wreck the Tzar’s palace, the discovery of which plot had caused Paul Denissoff’s flight from Russia. But, on the other hand, she remembered that with members of the Circle treachery was punishable by death.

“Come, I am awaiting your decision,” he said impatiently.

In desperation she asked for time to consider. But he was inexorable, and she saw there was but one course open to her—namely, to become a spy.

“I—I will enter your service,” she said at length, in a low, hoarse voice. “I cannot refuse, since you make it the price of my freedom.”

“Very well,” he exclaimed, with satisfaction. “You will find our Tzar a liberal master, and should occasion arise, you will receive our protection. As for your secret alliance with us, no one will be aware of it except yourself. Let us shake hands, madame—or is it mademoiselle?—upon our agreement.”

“No, Colonel Solovieff,” she replied, drawing herself up haughtily. “I have sufficient reason for declining that honour. It is enough that I have allied myself with your despicable spies. I must wish you good-night.”

“Very well, very well,” he said in a tone of annoyance, as he picked up his hat and bowed. “Au revoir, madame; we shall meet again before long,” he added meaningly, and, turning, he unlocked the door and went out.

“To-night—to-night I am vanquished!” she muttered fiercely between her teeth when he was out of hearing; “but henceforward I shall play a double game; and, ma foi! I intend to be victor!”

A year later, Colonel Solovieff had been recalled from London and appointed chief of the Secret Police of St. Petersburg. His success in discovering Nihilist plots in London and Paris had mainly been due to the information furnished by Adine, therefore he had compelled her to return to the Russian capital and take up her residence in the great mansion that had belonged to her late husband. Her implication in the revolutionary conspiracies had placed her completely in his power, and although forced to obey, she made one stipulation—that Paul Denissoff should be allowed to return to Petersburg unmolested. For a long time the colonel withheld this permission, but at length consented, and the fugitive returned to the woman he loved. He was unaware of Adine’s alliance with the police, and she feared to tell him, lest he should despise her. A few members of the revolutionary party living in various parts of Russia had been denounced by her, and the Ministry of the Interior, believing the arrests of great importance, had commended Solovieff in consequence; but, truth to tell, the persons convicted were of the least dangerous type, and she always exercised the utmost caution, lest she should bring to justice any enthusiastic member of the party or compromise herself.

Number 87 Nevski Prospekt was a small, rather dilapidated house of three storeys. The window shutters of the ground and first floors being closed, gave it the appearance of being uninhabited. One apartment on the top floor, however, was furnished as a sitting-room, and was tenanted occasionally by Colonel Solovieff. It would have been folly for Adine to have met the chief of police at her house or at any place where they might be observed; therefore, in order to elude the vigilance of spies, both police and revolutionary, that everywhere abound in the Russian capital, he had taken the house in order to provide them with a secret meeting-place.

One afternoon early in spring, she was standing alone in this room, gazing thoughtfully out of the window, awaiting the man she despised and hated. Though possessing wealth, beauty, and influence, her life had been fraught with much bitterness. While she was yet in her teens, she loved Paul Denissoff, at that time a student at Moscow University; but her mercenary mother had compelled her to marry Orlovski, one of the merchant princes of the capital. For two years they lived together very unhappily, until late one night he was found lying dead in the street, shot by an unknown hand.

Adine mourned for him, but it was scarcely surprising that she felt some secret satisfaction at her freedom; especially when Paul, hearing of her bereavement, sought an interview and expressed his sympathy. Then she was unable to conceal the fact that she still loved him, and their mutual affection was resumed. By her marriage Paul’s life had become embittered, and this had caused him to develop into a fearless Terrorist, reckless and enthusiastic in the cause of Russian freedom. When she discovered he was a Nihilist, she at once joined the Circle, rendering considerable pecuniary assistance to the cause, and taking a prominent part in the fierce and terrible struggle between the people and the bureaucracy.

Now, however, as a spy, her position was extremely dangerous, and as she stood looking down into the broad thoroughfare, she was reviewing her past, and vainly trying to devise some means by which she could escape from the web that the detested Solovieff had cast about her.

In a few minutes the man with whom she had an appointment entered.

“Ah! good afternoon,” he said, tossing his hat and stick upon a divan, and taking a chair at the table in the centre of the room. “Be seated. I have some news for you. Do you recollect that soon after you consented to assist us, you gave me some information regarding a conspiracy at Moscow?”

Her face twitched nervously as she replied in the affirmative.

“Well, we acted upon your statement, and arrested sixteen of the revolutionists, all of whom have been tried by court-martial and sentenced to the mines. In recognition of your services in this instance, I am directed by my Imperial master, the Tzar, to give you this.”

And, taking from his pocket-book a bank-note for five hundred roubles, he handed it to her.

She took it mechanically, scarcely knowing what she did. The touch of the limp paper, however, brought to her mind that it was the wages of her treachery. This filled her with indignation, and her face flushed crimson.

“Have you come to offer me yet another insult, Colonel Solovieff?” she cried. “Can you believe that I have fallen so low as to accept money as the price of the lives of poor wretches who are drawn into your merciless clutches? No, tell His Majesty that he may in future keep his paltry roubles. I do not require them. See how I value the Imperial munificence!”

And, taking the note between her fingers, she tore it into small pieces, which she scattered upon the carpet.

“We are not all so wealthy as yourself, madame,” he said, somewhat surprised at her unusual independence. “Yet, after all, your scruples regarding these miserable curs, the Nihilists, amount to no more than mere caprice.”

“That may be so,” she replied quickly; “but in future, whatever information you require, you will obtain for yourself. My efforts on your behalf have been rewarded by gross insult; therefore I shall refuse to disclose any other revolutionary secrets.”

“Pardon me, madame; I have no time to bandy words with you, but your decision is somewhat too hasty. I have discovered that three days hence a desperate attempt is to be made upon the life of His Majesty during the review at Peterhof, and further, that you are implicated in it!”

She started; she had believed her secret safe.

“I have resolved to preserve silence,” she said abruptly.

“The plot is a most serious and widespread one,” he continued, “and I tell you plainly that if you refuse to inform me where the meeting to arrange the final details will take place, I shall arrest both Denissoff and yourself as Nihilists. You have your choice.”

She was nonplussed, and sat twirling the ribbons of her dress with nervous fingers, while he leaned his elbows upon the table, looking at her intently.

“I scarcely think it would be worth your while to refuse,” he remarked.

“For myself, I care nothing. I am tired of being your puppet.”

“You love Paul Denissoff; surely you will save him from Siberia?”

She hesitated. She saw that to avoid Paul’s arrest she would be compelled to sacrifice all the members of the committee to whom the elaborate plot against the autocrat Alexander had been entrusted. She shuddered at the thought of the scandal it would create were she arraigned before a court-martial for conspiracy against the Tzar, and thought of the dreary, lifelong exile that would inevitably follow. In her bewilderment she resolved to secure Paul’s freedom at any cost.

“So this is but another illustration of your Satanic cunning,” she said at last, with knit brows. “I—I suppose it is imperative that I should betray my friends;” and she sighed heavily.

“Ah! I thought you would not care to bear the consequences of refusal,” he exclaimed, smiling at her perplexity.

“You laugh!” she cried, her eyes flashing with anger. “It is true that you hold my destiny in your hands, but take care you do not provoke me to desperation.”

“Threats do not become you, madame,” he replied coolly. “Tell me, where shall I find these conspirators?”

She paused. She was thinking how she could save her friends.

“You know the Bolshaia Ssattovaia?” she said suddenly. “Well, almost exactly opposite the Commercial Bank there is a small leather-shop, with a large kitchen below. Go there to-morrow night at ten o’clock.”

“Not to-night?” asked the chief of police, scribbling a memorandum.

“No; to-morrow.”

“Very well,” he said, rising and putting on his hat. “I am obliged for your information. Bon jour, madame. If I have been a little—a little abrupt, forgive me.”

A moment later he had gone.

The scene was a weird one. In a low, damp, underground cellar, a dozen men and women were sitting around a table, upon the centre of which a playing-card was pinned by a thin ivory-hilted dagger. A couple of guttering candles shed a feeble light upon the pale, determined countenances of the conspirators, among whom sat Paul Denissoff.

The elderly, wild-haired man who sat at the head of the table was speaking authoritatively, and had been explaining to those assembled, the proposals for the coup at Peterhof, a map of the neighbourhood being spread before him.

“And now,” he said gravely, “we must draw lots for the removal of the traitor to whom I referred at the opening of our council.”

A dead silence followed, while a man who sat on the president’s right prepared a number of small folded slips of paper. Upon one of these the president scribbled a name. Then they were placed together in a small box, and each of the revolutionists drew. In addition to the president himself, only the person who drew the paper with the name upon it knew who had been guilty of treachery, while all remained in ignorance of the chosen assassin.

Then the council broke up, arranging to meet on the following night.

At nine o’clock on the next evening, Paul Denissoff, pale-faced and haggard-eyed, entered the hall of the great house of the Orlovskis.

“I must see madame at once,” he said to a lackey. “Take me to her.”

A few moments later he was ushered along a spacious corridor filled with palms and exotics, through a great white and gold ballroom, and presently admitted into a small, exquisitely furnished little apartment, wherein sat Adine, in a lounge chair, doing fancy needlework.

“Ah, Paul?” she cried, starting to her feet. “Why, what ails you?”

“Hush, Adine,” he said hoarsely, when the door had closed. “Some one has denounced you to the executive as a traitor. The council have passed sentence of death, and I—I have drawn the fatal number. You must fly—you must leave Russia at once—to-night—for at midnight I must return here to—to murder you!”

“Dieu!” she gasped. “Then my secret has been divulged! I confess—it is true, Paul. I have been guilty of double dealing, but it was to save—Hark! Listen!”

There were sounds of voices outside the door, which a moment afterwards was flung open, revealing two ordinary-looking individuals, accompanied by several grey-coated police officers.

“Paul Denissoff,” exclaimed one of the detectives, stepping forward, “in the name of our father, the Tzar, I arrest you for conspiracy.”

“By Heaven! I’ll not go with you. I—”

In a moment he had drawn a revolver and placed himself on the defensive; but a second later the weapon was wrenched from his grasp. Adine, pale and weeping, threw herself between him and his captors, but she was roughly thrust aside, and he was handcuffed and conveyed away to the Police Bureau.

The Assize Court of St. Petersburg was crowded to suffocation, for a great trial of Nihilists was concluding. Paul Denissoff, as a preliminary to his punishment, had been kept in solitary confinement in one of the cells deep down under the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul. Together with thirty other revolutionists, including those arrested in the Bolshaia Ssattovaia, he was now brought up for sentence. The rays of the afternoon sun were slanting across the court, lighting up the daïs whereon sat the grave-looking judge, over whose head hung the golden double-headed eagle, surmounted by an ikon, or picture of the Virgin.

Those in court were breathless, for sentence was about to be delivered. Presently the judge spoke.

“Prisoners,” he said, addressing the motley row of eager-faced men and women before him, “you have all been found guilty of conspiracy to cause the death of His Imperial Majesty the Tzar. There is but one sentence the Swod allows me to pronounce, and it is that you shall be banished and kept at labour at the mines for the remainder of your lives.”

Above the sobs and wailing which came from the public portion of the court sounded a shrill, piercing, hysterical shriek. Paul, turning sharply, saw that a poorly-clad woman, sitting in the front row of the spectators, had fainted. Her clothes were common, her hair was parted in the middle and brushed back severely; but, notwithstanding the disguise, he recognised her. It was Adine Orlovski.

Two years had gone by. Colonel Solovieff, promoted to the rank of general, had been appointed by the Tzar as Governor of the Asiatic Province of Trans-Baikál.

In the whole of Siberia there is no region more desolate than around the Nerchinsk silver mines of Algachi and Pokrovski. Situated far away in Eastern Siberia, near the Mongolian frontier, and distant five thousand versts from St. Petersburg, there is not a tree or bush to be seen in any direction, and the rolling, snow-clad hills suggest in general contour the immense surges and mounds of water raised by a hurricane. The buildings at the entrance to the Pokrovski mine consist only of a tool-house, a shed for the accommodation of the Cossacks of the guard, and a few log-built cabins occupied by convicts allowed out on licence for good behaviour; while dotted here and there are sentry-boxes, before which stand Cossacks leaning on their rifles.

It is impossible to imagine a more terrible and hopeless existence than that to which Paul Denissoff had been consigned, working all day in the damp, muddy galleries of the mine, and at night trudging through the snow back to the close, foul prison of Algachi. It was, indeed, worse than the life of any pariah dog, for, recognising the hopelessness of the situation, he had given way to that inertness begotten of despair.

He had been toiling with his pick for nearly fourteen hours in the gloom of one of the lower galleries of the mine, when an armed warder came and told him it was time to leave. Casting down his pick, he sighed, and rose from the crouching position in which he was compelled to work. The dim candlelight showed he had aged considerably. The iron fetters upon his feet clanked ominously as he walked, and upon his ragged, mud-stained clothes was stitched the great yellow diamond denoting a life sentence.

Presently prisoner and warder came to the foot of the shaft, and both ascended the rickety ladders which led to the surface. At length they emerged into the light of day, and saw standing before one of the log-sheds a row of silent convicts guarded by Cossacks, waiting to be marched back to prison. Paul walked over and joined them. The wind was biting cold, and snow lay deep upon the road.

Outside the cabin of one of the convicts of the “free command” stood two well-appointed four-horse sleighs; and while the shivering men were wondering who could be travelling in this remote colony, another sleigh came rapidly along the road, preceded by two mounted Cossacks.

The vehicle drew up before the convicts, and its occupant, flinging off the rugs that covered him, stepped out. The men removed their hats and cheered, but Paul remained motionless. He recognised that the traveller was General Solovieff, the governor. Enveloped in a great sable-lined coat, from beneath which his sword trailed in the snow, he walked with difficulty over to where the captain of the Cossacks stood. After a few minutes’ conversation, the captain turned and shouted—

“Let the convict Denissoff come here!”

Paul stepped forward and saluted.

“Ah, yes,” said Solovieff, when he saw him, “This is the man; I knew him in Petersburg. He is very dangerous, therefore, in future, he is not to go to the mines. Let him remain in the prison always. You understand?”

“Yes, your Excellency,” replied the captain, wondering why such additional torture should be heaped on a prisoner so well-behaved; for he was well aware that work in the mine was even preferable to life in the foul, overcrowded prison.

“But, your Excellency,” protested Paul, “I have not been mutinous. I—”

“Silence!” thundered the general. “Get back to your place!”

As he turned, two persons confronted him—a man who wore an official uniform with the Imperial eagle upon his cap, and a woman wrapped in a great fur-lined travelling cloak.

The recognition was mutual, and in a moment he was wringing Adine’s hand.

Meanwhile the man had stepped forward, and, addressing the Cossack officer, said—

“Captain Yagodkin, we have not met before, my name is Ivan Torsneff, and I am an aide-de-camp of His Majesty, the Tzar.”

“Ah, I remember you, Torsneff!” cried the general, stretching forth his hand. “What brings you here, so far from Petersburg?”

“An unpleasant duty, General Solovieff,” replied the Tzar’s messenger coldly. Taking an official document from the pocket of his greatcoat, he added, “I have here a warrant from His Imperial Majesty, my august master, ordering Captain Yagodkin to release the prisoner Paul Denissoff immediately; and, further, to arrest and detain at hard labour the governor of the Trans-Baikál, General Solovieff.”

“What?” cried His Excellency. “You’re mad!”

“Captain Yagodkin,” continued Count Torsneff, “In the name of the Tzar, I hand the warrant to you. It is in His Majesty’s own handwriting—read for yourself.”

The Cossack officer opened it eagerly, read it through, and glanced at the Imperial signature and seal. Then, addressing the governor, he said—

“General Solovieff, you are under arrest, by order of the Tzar!”

“What for?”

“It has been proved by an accomplice of yours, one Sergius Baranoff,” replied the aide-de-camp, “that you are a murderer—that, with the object of eventually marrying Madame Orlovski, you waylaid and murdered her husband. Afterwards, when she rejected your proposals of marriage, you brought circumstantial evidence to bear and accused her of the crime. In your absence, the case has been tried in Petersburg, and your sentence is hard labour in the mines for life.”

A few hours later, Paul and Adine had started on the first stage of their journey back to civilisation. They are now married, and live happily in one of those charming villas in the pine forest at Arcachon.

Chapter Nine.

Vogue La Galère!

Yes, yes, this is the very spot! Here the great tragedy of my life was enacted. Twenty-four weary years of my existence have passed, and until this moment I have never summoned sufficient courage to visit it. Ah, Dieu! how all has changed! Paris is herself again.

You may perhaps know the place. Near the Porte de la Muette, a little way down the Boulevard Suchet, in the direction of Passy, the fortifications of the city recommence after the open space which gives access to the Bois. The ponderous walls are the same, though the breaches made by the German shells have been repaired, and the stones on which I tread bear no traces of the men’s blood that once made them so slippery. One hundred paces from the corner of the Boulevard there is a steep little path running up the grass-grown mound, beside a railing. Ascend it, and you will find yourself on the top of the great wall, below which, deep down in the fosse, on the outside towards the Bois, there is a well-kept market garden. The only noises on this sunny afternoon are the twittering of birds and the rustling of leaves—different sounds and a different outlook indeed to that which is indelibly impressed upon my memory. All are gone, gone! and I alone remain—aged, infirm, forsaken, and forgotten!

What matters, though I still wear my faded scrap of yellow and green ribbon upon the lapel of my shabby coat—what matters if I am an exile, an outlaw; that here, in Paris, after all these years, I dare not inscribe my proper name in the register? To both friends and enemies I am dead!

As I stand looking away over the market garden, towards the shady wood, a film gathers in my eyes, and I am carried back into the terrible past, to those black, fateful days when France lay helpless under the iron heel of the invader, who had encamped around St. Cloud and Suresnes. Paris—fettered, existing upon black bread and horse-flesh—shivered under an icy mantle. The black branches of the leafless trees over in the Bois stood out distinctly against the grey, stormy sky, and upon the ground snow was lying thickly. Hour after hour, day after day, week after week, we had held those walls, regardless of the hail of shell poured upon us from beyond the trees, and replying with monotonous, unceasing regularity. Hundreds of our gallant comrades were, alas! lying dead; hundreds were in the temporary hospitals established in the neighbouring churches; but we, the survivors—half-starved, with the biting wind chilling our bones, and so weak that our greatcoats felt as heavy as millstones,—resolved, every one of us, to face death and do our duty. We knew well that to hold out much longer would be impossible. In those dark December days the city was starving. Our country had been overrun by the Prussian legions, and sooner or later we must succumb to the inevitable.

The night was dark and moonless, as to and fro I paced on sentry duty. My post was a lonely one, under the strongest portion of the wall, at the point I have already indicated. Away in the direction of Courbevoie there was a lurid glare in the sky, showing that the enemy had committed another act of incendiarism; and now and then the booming of artillery echoed like distant thunder. In our quarter the guns of the enemy had ceased their fire—a silence that we felt was ominous. Under my feet the snow crunched as I marched slowly up and down; and with rifle loaded, and ready for any emergency, I waited patiently for relief, which would come at dawn. As I tramped on, I thought of my home away in the centre of the inert, trembling city; of my young wife, blue-eyed, fair-haired, from whom I had been torn away ere our honeymoon was scarcely over. How, I wondered, was she faring? As an advocate I had been distinctly successful, having been entrusted with quite a number of causes célèbres; but on the outbreak of war my chances of fortune had been suddenly wrecked, and I had been called upon to serve with the 106th Regiment of Infantry, first under General Chanzy on the Loire, and afterwards taking part in the defence of Paris.

Though now so near the woman I loved, I saw very little of her; indeed, I had not been able to snatch an hour to run home for the past fortnight. Yet, while I trudged on, I knew that one of the truest and best women on earth was awaiting me au troisième in the great old house in the Rue St. Sauveur.

I think that for some time I must have been oblivious to my surroundings, for on turning sharply, my eyes suddenly detected some indistinct object, moving cautiously in the shadow. Something prompted me to refrain from challenging, and, with rifle ready, I quickly hurried to the spot. With a cry of surprise, a man in a workman’s blouse sprang forward right up to the muzzle of my gun.

I challenged, and presented my rifle.

“Hold!” he gasped in French, in a low, hoarse tone. “Louis Henault, don’t you know me? Have you so soon forgotten your fellow-student, Paul Olbrich?”

The voice and the name caused me to start.

“You!” I cried, peering into his face, and in the semi-darkness discovering the scar upon his cheek that he had received in the fencing school at Königswinter. “You, Paul, my best friend! Alas that you are a Prussian, and we meet here as enemies!”

“As enemies?” he repeated, in a strange, harsh tone. “Yes, Louis, you are right,” he added bitterly,—“as enemies.”

“Why are you here?” I inquired breathlessly. “Why are you disguised as a French workman? It is my duty to arrest you—to—”

“But you will not. Remember, we were friends beside the Rhine, and we can only be enemies to the outside world. Surely you, of all men, will not betray me!”

“When last I heard of you, two years ago,” I said, “you were a lieutenant of dragoons. To-night you are here, inside Paris, disguised.”

“To tell the truth,” he replied quickly, “it is a love escapade. Let me get away quickly beyond the walls, and no one will know that you have detected me. See, over there,” and he pointed to a portion of the wall deep in the shadow. “There is my fiancée. I have dared to pass through your lines to rescue her before the final onslaught.”

I peered in the direction indicated, and could just distinguish a figure, hidden by a cloak, and closely veiled.

“Quick,” he continued; “there is no time for reflection. If you raise an alarm, my fate is sealed; if you allow us to proceed, two lives will be made happy. Do you consent?” Grasping my hand, he pressed it hard, adding, “Do, Louis, for her sake!”

Muffled footsteps and the clank of arms broke the quiet. Three officers were approaching.

“Go. May God protect you!” I replied; and, turning sharply, tramped onward in the opposite direction, while my old friend, and the woman he had rescued from starvation, were a second later lost in the darkness in the direction of the Prussian camp.

Scarcely had I taken a dozen paces when there were shouts, followed by shots rapidly exchanged.

“Spies!” I heard one of our men exclaim; “and, sacré! they’ve escaped!”

At that moment the officers who had approached ordered me to halt, and proceeded to question me as to whom I had been speaking with. I admitted that the man was a stranger, and that I had allowed him to pass out of the city. Thus all was discovered, and I was at once arrested as a traitor—as one who had rendered assistance to a Prussian spy!

The penalty was death. The stern, grey-haired general before whom I was taken half an hour later pronounced sentence; and, without ceremony, I was hurried off to execution. Bah! Fate has always been unkind to me. It would have been better had I fallen with four of my comrades’ bullets in my breast, than that I should have continued to drag out an existence till to-day. But the bombardment had recommenced vigorously; and as I was being led along, a shell fell close to my escort, and, bursting, killed two of the poor fellows, and demoralised the rest.

I saw my chance, and darted away. A moment later, I was lost among the trees.

Three hours later.

Breathlessly I mounted the long flights of stairs that led to my home, and opened the door with my key. Entering our little salon, I looked around. In the cold, grey light of dawn, the place looked unutterably cheerless, and the thunder of the guns was causing the windows to rattle. Passing quickly into the bedroom, I found the ceiling open to the sky, and a huge gap in the wall. A shell had fallen, and completely wrecked it.

“Rose!” I cried. “Rose, I have returned.”

There was no response. Another roar like the roll of thunder, and the whole place vibrated, as though an earthquake had occurred.

Where was Rose? I dashed back into the salon, and there, upon a table, I found a letter addressed to me in her familiar hand. Tearing it open, I read eagerly the three brief lines it contained, then staggered back, as if I had received a blow. A second later, I felt conscious of the presence of some one at my elbow; and, turning, found Mariette, our maid-of-all-work.

“My wife—where is my wife?” I gasped.

“Madame has gone, m’sieur,” the girl replied in her Gascon accent. “Last night a man called for her, and she went out, leaving a note for you.”

“A man?” I cried. “Describe him. What was he like?”

“I only caught one glimpse of him, m’sieur. He was fair, and had a long red scar across his cheek.”

“A scar?” I shrieked in dismay, as the terrible truth dawned suddenly upon me. Rose, whom I had first met in Cologne, when a student on the Rhine-bank, had told me that I was not her first love; and now I remembered that she had long ago been acquainted with my fellow-student, Paul Olbrich.

It was my own wife whom I had assisted to elope with my enemy!

Ah! time has not effaced her memory. My sorrow is still as bitter to-day as it was in that cold December dawn, with the horrors of war around me. My life has become soured, and my hair grey. Since that eventful night, I have wandered in strange lands, endeavouring to stifle my grief; for, still under sentence of death as a spy, I have been an exile and an outlaw until to-day.

What, you ask, has become of her?

Far away, in a secluded valley in the Harz, under the shadow of the mystic Brocken, there is a plain white cross in the village burying-ground, bearing the words, “Rose Henault, 1872.”

My enemy, Paul Olbrich, a year after the war had ended, succeeded to the family title and estates; and to-day he is one of the most prominent men in Europe, and acts as the diplomatic representative of Germany at a certain Court that must be nameless.

Truly, Fate has been unkind to me. To-day, for the first time, I have taken my skeleton from its cupboard. Would that I could bury it forever!

Chapter Ten.

Fortune’s Fool.

I am no longer myself. I vanished involuntarily. Truth to tell, I was befooled by Fortune.

As confidential messenger in the service of the Bank of France, it was my duty to convey notes and bullion to various European capitals, and so constantly did I travel between London and Paris, and to Rome, Berlin, and Vienna, that my long journeys became terribly irksome, and I longed for rest and quiet. There is much excitement and anxiety in such a life, when one is entrusted with large sums of money which are impossible to hide in one’s pocket.

In the year 1883, England, as is frequently the case, was remitting a quantity of gold coin to France, and consequently, during the month of June, I was making two, and sometimes three, journeys between Paris and London weekly. Incessant travelling, such as this, soon wearies even those inured to long railway journeys, especially if one very often has to arrive in London in the morning only to leave again the same night. A long trip, say to the Austrian or Turkish capitals, was much more to my taste than the wearying monotony of the Dover-Calais route, and the inevitable turmoil between Paris and the English metropolis.

One warm night—although excessively tired, having arrived in London at an early hour that morning—I was compelled to return, and left Charing Cross by the mail train at half-past eight. I had with me a box from the Bank of England containing a large quantity of bullion. As far as Dover I was alone, smoking and dozing over a newspaper, but when I alighted on the pier, the weather had changed. It rained in torrents, and a violent wind was blowing in a manner that was indicative of a “dirty” night.

My expectations in this respect proved correct, and I was glad to arrive at Calais, where I selected an empty first-class compartment, bade the porter deposit my weighty box on the seat, and, wrapping myself comfortably in my travelling rug, settled myself for the remainder of the journey. While such a quantity of gold was in my possession, I dared not sleep, yet, fatigued as I was, I experienced great difficulty in keeping awake. It was always possible that while coin was in my custody I might be watched and followed by thieves, therefore a loaded revolver constantly reposed in my pocket ready for an emergency.

Few persons were travelling that night, and I was fortunate in having the compartment to myself as far as Abbeville. Then there entered two well-dressed Frenchmen, who, after scrutinising me rather closely, sank into opposite corners of the carriage. Seldom I felt uneasy regarding fellow-travellers; nevertheless, I confess that as I looked at them, I felt a strange, vague shadow of distrust. Instinctively I felt for my revolver, assuring myself that it was ready if required. Somehow I had a suspicion that the men had been on board the Channel boat, and were following me for some evil purpose. But they sat opposite one another smoking, occasionally indulging in conversation, though always keeping their faces concealed as much as possible from the pale, flickering rays of the lamp overhead.

As we sped south, I became more fully convinced that they meant mischief. Looking at my watch, I found that in twenty minutes we should be at Amiens, and determined to change into another carriage there. Patiently I sat, gazing out of the window watching the grey streak of dawn break over the low, distant hills, when suddenly I felt a terrible crushing blow on the top of my skull.

At the same moment I drew forth my revolver and pulled the trigger. Then a darkness fell upon me, and I remember nothing more.

The sensation was horrible; the pain excruciating. It seemed as though a thousand red-hot needles were being thrust into my brain.

Slowly the terrible throbbing in my head abated, and I found myself seated in an armchair in a well-furnished, though unfamiliar, drawing-room. It was lit by tiny electric lamps, shaded with canary silk; and, as I gazed round in abject astonishment, I noticed a pretty fernery beyond, which looked like a mermaid’s grotto in the depths of the sea, so dense was the mass of dimly-illuminated greenery.

My first thoughts were of my charge, and I felt for my pouch, in which I had carried a bundle of bank-notes.

It was not there! Placing my hand upon my chin, I was startled to find that I had a beard, while on the previous night I had been clean shaven! And the box of bullion—where was that?

I started to my feet, and as I did so, my figure was reflected in a long mirror. I staggered back in dismay, for, although last night I was a sprightly and spruce young man of thirty, my hair was now turning grey, and my face so aged and wrinkled that I could scarcely recognise myself!

Where was I? What could it all mean?

I saw a bell, and rang it hastily.

My summons was quickly answered by a sharp-featured man, who was evidently not a servant.

“Tell me, who brought me here? Whose house is this?” I demanded.

He gazed at me, open-mouthed, in astonishment.

“I—er—You’re not well, sir, I think. This is your own house.”

“Mine?” I cried incredulously. “Nonsense. Who are you, pray?”

“I’m your secretary,” he replied, adding, “I—I’ll return in a moment;” and then, in evident alarm, he disappeared.

I had no time to reflect upon the mystery of the situation before there entered a tall, beautiful woman, of what might be termed the Junoesque type, attired in a handsome dinner-gown.

“Why, my dear, whatever have you been saying to Norton? You’ve quite frightened him,” she exclaimed, laughing. “How is it that you’re not dressed? You remember we promised to dine with the Websters to-night.”

“I—I confess I don’t understand you, madam,” I gasped, for my brain was in a whirl, and everything seemed in maddening confusion. The pain in my head was intense.

“What’s the matter? What has happened?” she cried in alarm. “Don’t you recognise me—Lena, your wife?”

“My wife?” I gasped, astounded. “No, I’ve never seen you before. It’s some trick. Where is the box—the box that was with me in the train?”

Her look of distress deepened, as she said, “Calm yourself, my dear. You are not well, and must have advice.”

“I want none,” I replied hotly. “I desire nothing beyond the box. These are not my clothes,” I said, glancing in puzzled confusion at the coat I wore. “Where are mine?”

“I don’t comprehend your meaning,” said the handsome woman who called herself my wife. “Your mind must be wandering, Harry.”

“That’s not my name. I am Charles Deane.”

“No, no, dear,” she cried. “You are under some strange delusion. What can have happened to you? You are Henry Medhurst, and I am Lena Medhurst, your wife.”

“Where and when did you marry me, pray?”

“In Cape Town, five years ago.”

“In Cape Town? And where are we now?”

“This is your house, situate, I think, to be exact, two and a half miles from Johannesburg. Is there anything else you desire to know?” she added, with a smile, half inclined to believe that I was joking.

The crowd of thoughts and feelings that burst upon my mind was indescribable. Was I still myself, or was it all a delusion?

No. It was a stern reality; a deep, inexplicable mystery.

“I married you five years ago, you say. Then what year of grace is this?”

“Come,” replied my wife, “such fooling is out of place, dear. You know as well as I that it is 1893.”

“What!” I cried, feeling myself grow rigid in amazement. “Yesterday was ten years ago!”

I was undoubtedly wide awake and sensible, but that I was really myself I began to doubt. I struggled to comprehend the situation, but failed. How I came to be in South Africa, the possessor of such a mansion, the husband of such a wife, was a problem beyond solution. I felt light-headed, for the horrible suspense was goading me into a frenzy of madness.

“There must be some—some serious mistake,” I said calmly. “I’ve never had the pleasure of setting eyes upon you before this evening, and am utterly at a loss to understand who or what I am.”

She regarded me with a terrified expression; her face suddenly blanched, and she would have fallen, had I not caught her and placed her upon the settee.

Ringing the bell again, a maid-servant answered my summons.

“Your mistress has fainted. Call some one to her assistance,” I said; and then I proceeded to explore the house. It was a splendid modern mansion, and by the bright moonlight I discerned that it was surrounded by a well-kept lawn and clumps of fine old trees.

I was utterly unable to realise that the journey to Paris had been made ten years before; nevertheless, my aged appearance, my beard, the fact of my marriage, and my apparent opulence, all combined to confirm her statement. In vain I tried to recollect the incidents of that memorable night; but, beyond the knowledge that I received a terrible blow, I could remember nothing.

Pacing in distraction the broad terrace that ran before the house, I suddenly heard footsteps behind me. Turning, I confronted the man who called himself my secretary.

“Griffiths, the manager of Pike’s Reef, has just arrived from Pretoria, and wishes to see you on important business, sir.”

“To see me? What for?”

“He desires instructions regarding the Reef. They’ve struck the lead at last, and the crushings show it to be one of the richest veins in the Randt. Shall I bring him to you?”

“No,” I replied savagely; “I want to be alone. I haven’t the slightest notion of what you’re talking about.”

“Surely you know Griffiths, sir? He used to manage your old mine, the Bellefontaine, and is now in charge at Pike’s Reef.”

“I don’t know him, and have no desire to make his acquaintance. Send him away,” I said abruptly.

The man, who seemed puzzled, hesitated for a moment, and, after muttering some words in an undertone, re-entered the house.

For nearly half an hour I had remained alone, until the maid appeared, saying, “Mistress would like to see you in the drawing-room, sir.”

I obeyed the summons, and on entering the room, found the woman who called me husband seated on a low chair, while near her stood a short, stout old gentleman, in a frock-coat of rather ancient cut, and wearing gold-rimmed pince-nez.

“Ah, my dear Medhurst!” exclaimed the man, greeting me effusively. “How are you this evening?”

“I haven’t the pleasure of knowing you, sir,” I said indifferently.

“You don’t know Dr Beale? Come, come, this won’t do at all,” he said, smiling.

I assured him that I had never set eyes upon him before, and went on to explain how I had been travelling to Paris and suddenly struck insensible, only to regain consciousness and find myself in Africa—rich, married, and ten years older.

The doctor listened with grave attention, and subsequently we entered upon a long and rather heated discussion. All I wanted to discover was how I came to be there.

“Monomania, evidently,” observed the doctor in a low voice, when we had been talking for some time. “It develops frequently into the most violent form of madness. He will have to be kept in seclusion and watched.”

Again I resented the imputation that I was going insane, to which the medical luminary replied, “Very well, my dear fellow, very well. We will believe what you say. Calm yourself; for your wife is nervous and weak, remember.”

I turned away disgusted. All my efforts to explain the remarkable facts had only been met with incredulity by the idiotic, soft-spoken old doctor, who undoubtedly imagined I was mad.

In desperation I strode out of the house, and spent the night in wandering about the grounds, and walking aimlessly through unfamiliar roads, subsequently sitting down upon the fallen trunk of a tree, where I fell asleep.

When I retraced my footsteps, the bright morning sun was glinting through the foliage of the dense wood that seemed to almost surround the house.

From a servant I learnt that my soi-disant wife was too unwell to leave her room; and as I wandered through the place, I entered one apartment which was evidently a study—my own, possibly. Glancing round at the books, the two great iron safes, and the telephone instruments, I seated myself at the littered writing-table. Turning over the papers before me, I saw they related to mining enterprises involving large sums. Many of them were evidently in my handwriting, but the signatures were “Henry Medhurst,” and the note-paper bore the heading, “Great Bellefontaine Gold Mines, Offices, 127 Commissioner Street, Johannesburg.”

Upwards of an hour I sat plunged in thought, bewildered by the events of the past few hours. I felt I must make some strenuous effort to solve the enigma, and account for the intervening ten years that I had lost. I could not have been asleep in the manner of the legendary Rip Van Winkle, but must have been existing during the period. Yet where did I live? And how?

It seemed clear from the doctor’s words that if I remained, I should be placed under restraint as an imbecile. Therefore the thought suggested itself that I should return to Europe, and endeavour to find out what befell me on that midnight journey. Recollecting that I should require funds, I searched the drawers of the writing-table, and found a cash-box, in which was nearly four hundred pounds in gold and notes. This was sufficient for the journey; and, with a feeling of joy, I transferred it to my pockets, and prepared for departure.

A few hasty lines I wrote to my self-styled wife, informing her of my intention, and stating that I should return as soon as I had gained the information necessary to restore my peace of mind. Afterwards I went to my room, crammed a few necessaries into a travelling-bag, and, without uttering a word of farewell, left the City of Gold en route for England.

Arrived in London, I set about tracing my career; but from the outset I found it a task fraught by many difficulties. I must have altered considerably in personal appearance during my absence, for none of my friends recognised me. There was but one agency that seemed likely to render me assistance, namely, the Press. The files of the Times and Telegraph for 1883 I searched diligently, but gleaned nothing from them. Indeed, I spent several weeks in looking through various daily and weekly papers, published about the time of my fatal journey, without result, until one day it occurred to me that the French Press might aid me. Accordingly, I went to Paris, and on the following day called at the office of the Gaulois, where I obtained the file for the year I required. Turning to the paper for the day following my sudden oblivion, my eye fell upon the headline, “Terrible Accident on the Northern Railway.” Eagerly I read and reread every word, for here was what seemed a clue to the mystery.

It appeared that the train in which I had travelled, when approaching Longpré, ran into some trucks, and was completely wrecked, seven persons being killed and about twenty injured. In a first-class compartment two passengers were discovered, one of whom had among his luggage a box containing a large sum in English gold and notes. Neither men had been injured by the accident; but one, presumably, in order to obtain possession of the money, had shot his fellow-traveller dead, and was making off with his booty when he was apprehended, and brought to Paris.

In the papers of following days I found a report of the examination before the Juge d’instruction, and the subsequent trial before the Assize Court of the Seine. According to the newspaper accounts, the man charged with wilful murder was young and well-dressed, but seemed enveloped in mystery, inasmuch as he conducted himself strangely, refusing to give his name or any account of himself, and preserving an immutable silence throughout the many days the case lasted. Judging from the prominence given to the report, the trial must have been a celebrated one, and considerable excitement was created in the French capital, owing to the fact that several prominent members of the medical profession, who had examined the accused, agreed that he was suffering from some strange mental affection, the precise nature of which they were unable to discover. It was owing to this that the culprit escaped the guillotine, being sentenced to hard labour for life, and transportation to the penal colony of New Caledonia.

Which was I, the murderer or the murdered?

I felt confident I was one or the other. Therefore, I resolved to find out whether this mysterious convict was still alive; and if so, to seek an explanation from him. The thought occurred to me that an official in the Prisons Department, whom I had known, might be able to furnish me with the information. After some difficulty I discovered him, but he had long ago retired into private life. So entirely had my personal appearance changed, that he did not recognise me. Therefore, by representing that I was an English solicitor, anxious to discover a next-of-kin, and offering to pay handsomely for the investigation, I prevailed upon him to seek an interview with the chief of the department, and ascertain whether the convict was still living.

When I called a few days later, he placed in my hands a memorandum signed by the chief, certifying that after two years at La Nouvelle—as the French prison island is termed,—prisoner Number 8469, committed for life for murder, had effected his escape by means of an open boat in company with Jean Montbazon, who had been convicted of forging Spanish bonds. Both were known to have landed on the Queensland coast after a perilous voyage; but they had disappeared before the Australian police were communicated with, and all efforts to trace them had been futile. Having, however, been employed in the Government mines near Noumea, it was expected that they had obtained work in one of the remote mining districts, where they could effectively hide until the search was over.

To find this man Montbazon was no easy task, but if I chanced to be successful, he might, I thought, tell me something of his whilom comrade in adversity.

I was puzzled how to proceed, but at length resorted to advertising as the only expedient. In the chief French and Colonial newspapers I caused to be inserted a brief paragraph addressed to “Jean Montbazon, late of Noumea,” stating that his companion upon the voyage from New Caledonia to Australia wished particularly to meet him, and giving my address at the Table Bay Hotel, Cape Town, whither I proceeded. Patiently I awaited a reply, but although I had spent a large sum upon the advertisement, it apparently failed to reach the man whose acquaintance I desired to make.

For many weeks I remained at the hotel, feeling no desire to return to Johannesburg until I had cleared up the mystery and accounted for my lost identity. Times without number I was tempted to relinquish the effort to trace my past, yet with sheer, dogged perversity, I remained and hoped.

At last my patience was rewarded, for one evening, while I was sitting on the balcony of the hotel, enjoying a cigar in the starlight, the waiter brought me a visitor.

Judge my dismay when I recognised the face of my secretary.

“Well, old fellow,” he exclaimed familiarly, “and what means all this confounded mystery?”

I sat speechless in amazement.

“I saw the advertisement in the Cape Times, and, concluding that something was wrong, came down here. What is it?” he continued, sinking lazily into a chair by my side.

“The advertisement?” I gasped. “I—I don’t understand you.”

“Your advertisement was addressed to Jean Montbazon, your humble and obedient servant, who shared your lot at La Nouvelle, and who escaped with you.”

“What?” I cried. “Is that true?”

“I think, mon cher ami, you must have taken leave of your senses, as madame declares you have. Come, now, what’s the matter?”

“Are—are you really Jean Montbazon?”

“That’s my baptismal cognomen, though Fred Norton suits me better just now.”

“Look here,” I said earnestly: “I admit I’m not quite myself; indeed, I have forgotten everything. Tell me how we escaped, and why I am so rich, while you are my secretary.”

The man looked at me incredulously, remarking, “Ma foi! I thought you were a bit vacant before you left Johannesburg so mysteriously, but you now seem stark mad. It would take a long time to recount all our adventures, and some would be rather unpleasant reminiscences. You were sent to penal servitude for life for murder, and I for forgery. We were pals in the same labour-gang, and one day, finding an open boat upon the beach, we resolved to escape, and embarked. In the boat was a keg of water and a barrel of biscuits, which sufficed to keep body and soul together until, after a terrible voyage lasting many days, we ran ashore near Port Curtis, in Queensland. Having regained our freedom, we tramped to the gold diggings, and worked together for about a year. You had extraordinary luck, and soon became rich, while I was often obliged to exist upon your charity. In a year, however, an unfortunate incident occurred at our camp at Gum Tree Gulch. A man who was known to have a quantity of dust in his belt was found dead, with an ugly wound upon his head; and, in consequence of this, Australia became too warm for you and I. Therefore we left the camp hurriedly one night, without wishing adieu to our comrades, and came here, to South Africa, to try our luck. As usual, your good fortune did not desert you. Already rich, you bought some big claims in the Randt, and worked them with almost incredible results. Then the boom came.”

“And how did that affect me?”

“You had previously married a wealthy woman before the gold fever set in. When the boom came, you sold both her property and yours at such prices that within three weeks you were almost a millionaire.”

“What am I now?” I asked, amazed at this remarkable story.

“You are owner of two of the richest gold workings in the Transvaal, and I—always a Lazarus—am your confidential secretary. Most confidential, I assure you,” he added, smiling. “The master a murderer; the servant a forger!”

Having thus filled up the long blank in my memory, I did not rest until I had satisfactorily accounted for the events of that fateful night. Subsequently I discovered that the violent blow on my head, received in the accident, had produced such an effect on my brain as to render oblivious all the events of my past. From that moment I commenced a second life. One of my fellow-passengers, noticing my injury, was endeavouring to steal the box of bullion, when I shot him dead with my revolver. Afterwards, when I had recovered consciousness, I opened the box, and, secreting part of the money in my pockets, tried to get away unobserved. But I was arrested, tried for murder, and transported. The rest is known.

At my trial I refused to give any account of myself, for the simple reason that I remembered nothing. My mind was an absolute blank. I had lived an entirely different life for ten years, until I accidentally struck my head a violent blow against the corner of a mantelshelf in my drawing-room, causing the memory of my earlier life to return as suddenly as it had fled, and thus leaving a gap of ten years for me to fill.

Mine was an extraordinary case; but, as I afterwards discovered, my duality of brain was by no means unprecedented. Such vagaries of the mind, although rare, are known to medical science.

When, a week afterwards, I returned to Johannesburg—that dusty, noisy City of Mammon—Lena welcomed me warmly. The same evening, after I had explained to her the cause of my sudden disappearance and apparent insanity, she went to her room, and on her return handed me a faded blue envelope, secured by the official seal of the Bank of England.