ut
he did not intend going; he wanted to be away among the moors, he wanted
to think. His last evening's experiences had meant more to him than he
knew. Mrs. Briggs was right when she thought she saw a change in him.
The world yesterday and the world to-day were different, and he was
different. He was no longer the thoughtful, melancholy Eastern gentleman
who called himself Ricordo; he was Radford Leicester. Not only had he
risen from the dead, but the past had risen. The buried years seemed to
be with him again, in a way he could scarcely realise.

When he had left England long years before, he had left it with one
thought in his mind. He would go away only to return again, and he would
return only to be revenged on the woman he had loved. For his love had
turned to hatred. As he had loved passionately, and with all the fervour
of his nature, now he hated with as much intensity. For a few weeks he
had lived in paradise only to be cast into an inferno, all the more
ghastly because of the paradise in which he had lived. Through her he
had become disgraced, through her he had become the byword of all who
had known him. He had been a proud man, and this woman had wounded his
pride, she had wounded his sense of justice, she had aroused all that
was evil in him. And he had vowed vengeance. Revenge is one of the
primitive passions of humanity, and when Leicester found himself cast on
the sea of life, without anchor or rudder, he determined that he would
make Olive Castlemaine suffer as he had suffered. His disgrace should be
hers. If he had been the byword for all who had known him, so should
she.

At length when the time was ripe he came to England again. In his mind
only one thought held possession in his heart, only one feeling was
dominant--his hatred for the woman whom he had once loved should find
expression. When he came to Vale Linden, and saw how matters stood, he
formulated his plans. The thing he had conceived was cruel, but he had
gloated over it. After all, the veneer of civilisation counts for very
little. Rob a man of religion and he is only a savage, with a savage's
instincts and desires. The Mosaic code expresses the natural bent of the
heart; "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." For years Leicester
had brooded over his vow, and now the debt should be paid to the
uttermost farthing. No thought of pity or of mercy came into his mind.
He felt he had been wronged; love had turned to hatred, and he woul