prudent to remain as they were, subject to curiosity and
scrutiny. Roland rose from his knees, and without glancing again toward
her, he spoke in a low voice of unutterable grief and supplication.

"Let me see you and speak to you once more," he said.

"Once more," she repeated.

"This evening," he continued, "at your hotel."

"Yes," she answered. "I am travelling under Phebe Marlowe's name. Ask
for Mrs. Marlowe."

She turned away and walked slowly and feebly down the aisle; and he
watched her, as he had watched the light tread of the young girl eleven
years ago, passing through alternate sunshine and shadow. There was no
sunshine now. Was it possible that so long a time had passed since then?
Could it be true that for ten years she had been his wife, and that the
tie between them was forever dissolved? From this day he was to be dead
to her and to all the world. He was about to pass voluntarily into a
condition of death amid life, as utterly bereft of all that had once
been his as if the grave had closed over him. Roland Sefton was to exist
no more.

CHAPTER XV.

A SECOND FRAUD.

Roland Sefton went back to the room in which the corpse of the stranger
was now lying. The women were gone, and he turned down the sheet to look
at the face of the man who was about to bear his name and the disgrace
of his crime into the safe asylum of the grave. It was perfectly calm,
with no trace of the night's suffering upon it; there was even a faint
vestige of a smile about the mouth, as of one who sleeps well, and has
pleasant dreams. He was apparently about Roland's own age, and a
description given by strangers would not be such as would lead to any
suspicion that there could have been a mistake as to identity. Roland
looked long upon it before covering it up again, and then he sat down
beside the bed and opened the pocket-book.

There were notes in it worth fifty pounds, but not many papers. There
was a memorandum made here and there of the places he had visited, and
the last entry was dated the day before at Engstlenalp. Roland knew
every step of the road, and for a while he seemed to himself to be this
traveller, starting from the little inn, not yet vacated by its peasant
landlord, but soon to be left to icy solitude, and taking the narrow
path along the Engstlensee, toiling up the Joch pass under the mighty
Wendenstoecke and the snowy Titlis, clear of clouds from base to summit
yesterday. The traveller must hav