e
previous season, which made it impossible for him to ever wish to see
her again. Their separation was final and complete.

"'She deceived me cruelly,' he said; 'I cannot tell you how cruelly.
During the two years when I was trying to obtain my father's consent to
our marriage she was in love with a Russian diplomat. During all that
time he was secretly visiting her here in London, and her trip to Cairo
was only an excuse to meet him there.'

"'Yet you are here with her tonight,' Arthur protested, 'only a few
hours after your return.'

"'That is easily explained,' Chetney answered. 'As I finished dinner
tonight at the hotel, I received a note from her from this address. In
it she said she had but just learned of my arrival, and begged me
to come to her at once. She wrote that she was in great and present
trouble, dying of an incurable illness, and without friends or money.
She begged me, for the sake of old times, to come to her assistance.
During the last two years in the jungle all my former feeling for Ziehy
has utterly passed away, but no one could have dismissed the appeal she
made in that letter. So I came here, and found her, as you have seen
her, quite as beautiful as she ever was, in very good health, and, from
the look of the house, in no need of money.

"'I asked her what she meant by writing me that she was dying in a
garret, and she laughed, and said she had done so because she was
afraid, unless I thought she needed help, I would not try to see her.
That was where we were when you arrived. And now,' Chetney added, 'I
will say good-by to her, and you had better return home. No, you can
trust me, I shall follow you at once. She has no influence over me now,
but I believe, in spite of the way she has used me, that she is, after
her queer fashion, still fond of me, and when she learns that this
good-by is final there may be a scene, and it is not fair to her that
you should be here. So, go home at once, and tell the governor that I
am following you in ten minutes.' "'That,' said Arthur, 'is the way we
parted. I never left him on more friendly terms. I was happy to see him
alive again, I was happy to think he had returned in time to make up his
quarrel with my father, and I was happy that at last he was shut of that
woman. I was never better pleased with him in my life.' He turned to
Inspector Lyle, who was sitting at the foot of the bed taking notes of
all he told us.

"'Why in the name of common sense,