s the first they had heard of his marriage. There was just a
faint hope that it might have effected a change, and Michael, against
Ellenby's advice, decided to go. In a miserable lodging-house in the
East End he found the young wife, but not his brother, who did not
return till he was on the point of leaving. In the interval the girl
seems to have confided her story to Michael.

She had been a singer, engaged at a music-hall in Rotterdam. There
Alex Hepworth, calling himself Charlie Martin, had met her and made
love to her. When he chose, he could be agreeable enough, and no doubt
her youth and beauty had given to his protestations, for the time
being, a genuine ring of admiration and desire. It was to escape from
her surroundings, more than anything else, that she had consented. She
was little more than a child, and anything seemed preferable to the
nightly horror to which her life exposed her.

He had never married her. At least, that was her belief at the time.
During his first drunken bout he had flung it in her face that the form
they had gone through was mere bunkum. Unfortunately for her, this was
a lie. He had always been coolly calculating. It was probably with
the idea of a safe investment that he had seen to it that the ceremony
had been strictly legal.

Her life with him, so soon as the first novelty of her had worn off,
had been unspeakable. The band that she wore round her neck was to
hide where, in a fit of savagery, because she had refused to earn money
for him on the streets, he had tried to cut her throat. Now that she
had got back to England she intended to leave him. If he followed and
killed her she did not care.

It was for her sake that young Hepworth eventually offered to help his
brother again, on the condition that he would go away by himself. To
this the other agreed. He seems to have given a short display of
remorse. There must have been a grin on his face as he turned away.
His cunning eyes had foreseen what was likely to happen. The idea of
blackmail was no doubt in his mind from the beginning. With the charge
of bigamy as a weapon in his hand, he might rely for the rest of his
life upon a steady and increasing income.

Michael saw his brother off as a second-class passenger on a ship bound
for the Cape. Of course, there was little chance of his keeping his
word, but there was always the chance of his getting himself knocked on
the head in some brawl. Anyhow, he wo