d been finally rounded up and convicted
there. The bayonet, so legend has it, was first made in Bayonne, and
Sagon conceived that it would be a sort of poetic justice if the
traitor were to die by a weapon so closely connected with the scene of
his treachery."

There was a pause after this, and then young Morris got up slowly and
painfully.

"I don't want it to be thought," said he "that I was directly
responsible for Miss Vale's adventure of last night--or for any of the
others, for the matter of that. If I had known at the time that she
proposed visiting Locke's, or Hume's, either upon the night of the
murder, or last night, I would have prevented it."

Ashton-Kirk nodded kindly; the young man's position evidently
appealed to him. But Pendleton sat rather stiffly in his chair and his
expression never changed.

"I will now come into possession of whatever value there is in my
father's invention," went on Morris, "and added to that, it turns out
that the--the other thing, of which I stood so much in fear, has
turned out favorably. But," in a disheartened sort of way, "I don't
care much, now that my engagement with Miss Vale is broken."

"Broken!" exclaimed Pendleton.

"I saw her this morning," said Morris. "During the past week," he
continued, "it gradually came to me that I was not the sort of man to
make her a fitting husband. I hid like a squirrel while she faced the
dangers that should have been mine. I knew that she realized the
situation as well as I, and I did what I could by making it easy for
her."

He paused at the door.

"If there is anything that I can do, or say in the final settlement of
this case," he added, to Ashton-Kirk, "I will gladly place myself at
your services, sir. Good-bye."

CHAPTER XXVI

THE FINISH

"For the first time," said Pendleton, as the door closed upon Allan
Morris, "I can feel sorry for him. To lose a girl like Edyth Vale is
indeed a calamity. Think of the courage she's shown--of what she was
willing to do. Why, Kirk, she's one in ten thousand."

But Ashton-Kirk only nodded; he had arisen upon the departure of
Morris, and was now drawing on a pair of gloves. The splendid
qualities of Miss Vale apparently had little appeal for him at that
moment.

"Are you ready?" he asked, in a business-like way.

"Ready?" repeated Pendleton, surprised.

"To be sure. We can scarcely call this case complete until something
has been done in the matter of Locke."

"That's