t for a few moments paralyzed every nerve center
in his body, John Keith stood with the slip of white paper in his
hands. He was discovered! That was the one thought that pounded like a
hammer in his brain. He was discovered in the very hour of his triumph
and exaltation, in that hour when the world had opened its portals of
joy and hope for him again and when life itself, after four years of
hell, was once more worth the living. Had the shock come a few hours
before, he would have taken it differently. He was expecting it then.
He had expected it when he entered McDowell's office the first time. He
was prepared for it afterward. Discovery, failure, and death were
possibilities of the hazardous game he was playing, and he was
unafraid, because he had only his life to lose, a life that was not
much more than a hopeless derelict at most. Now it was different. Mary
Josephine had come like some rare and wonderful alchemy to transmute
for him all leaden things into gold. In a few minutes she had upset the
world. She had literally torn aside for him the hopeless chaos in which
he saw himself struggling, flooding him with the warm radiance of a
great love and a still greater desire. On his lips he could feel the
soft thrill of her good-night kiss and about his neck the embrace of
her soft arms. She had not gone to sleep yet. Across in the other room
she was thinking of him, loving him; perhaps she was on her knees
praying for him, even as he held in his fingers Shan Tung's mysterious
forewarning of his doom.

The first impulse that crowded in upon him was that of flight, the
selfish impulse of personal salvation. He could get away. The night
would swallow him up. A moment later he was mentally castigating
himself for the treachery of that impulse to Mary Josephine. His
floundering senses began to readjust themselves.

Why had Shan Tung given him this warning? Why had he not gone straight
to Inspector McDowell with the astounding disclosure of the fact that
the man supposed to be Derwent Conniston was not Derwent Conniston, but
John Keith, the murderer of Miriam Kirkstone's father?

The questions brought to Keith a new thrill. He read the note again. It
was a definite thing stating a certainty and not a guess. Shan Tung had
not shot at random. He knew. He knew that he was not Derwent Conniston
but John Keith. And he believed that he had killed the Englishman to
steal his identity. In the face of these things he had not gone t