Mr. Trendall, but I ask you, for the present, to make
no further use of it," replied the girl.

He moved a step closer to her and caught her disengaged hand in his, the
glad light in her eyes telling him that his action was one which she
reciprocated, yet some sense of her unworthiness of this great love
causing her to hesitate.

"I will promise," said the strong, manly fellow in a low tone. "I ought
to have made allowances, but, in the horror of my suspicion, I did not,
and I'm sorry. I love you, Enid--I had never really loved until I met
you, until I held your hand in mine!"

Enid's true, overburdened heart was only too ready to respond to his
fervent appeal. She suffered her lover to draw her to himself, and their
lips met in a long, passionate caress that blotted out all the past. He
spoke quick, rapid words of ardent affection. To Enid, after all the
hideous events she had passed through, it seemed too happy to be true
that so much bliss was in store for her, and she remained there, with
Walter's arm around her, silently content, that fervid kiss being the
first he had ever imprinted upon her full red lips.

Thus they remained in each other's arms, their two true hearts beating in
unison, their kisses mingling, their twin souls united in the first
moments of their newly-found ecstasy of perfect love.

The fight had been a fierce one, but their true hearts had won, and, as
they whispered each other's fond affection, Enid promised to be the wife
of the honest, fearless man of whose magnificent work in the detection of
crime the country had never dreamed. They read his books and were
enthralled by them, but little did they think that he was one of the
never-sleeping watch-dogs upon great criminals, or that the sweet-faced
girl, who was now his affianced wife, had risked her life, her love, her
honour, in order to assist him.

Next afternoon Sir Hugh called upon Walter at his dingy chambers in
Holles Street, and as they sat together the old general, after a long
and somewhat painful silence, exclaimed:

"I know, Fetherston, that you must be mystified how, in my position, I
should have become implicated in the doings of that criminal gang."

"Yes, I am," Walter declared.

"Well, briefly, it occurred in this way," said the old officer. "While I
was a colonel in India just before the war I was very hard pressed for
money and had committed a fault--an indiscretion for which I might easily
have been dismissed from