th into full view of the crowd around the
table.

V.

THE YELLOW DOMINO.

A mingled sound of shrieks and exclamations greeted me.

"Joe!" cried Edith, bounding forward.

But I waved her back, and turned with a severe gesture toward Hartley
Benson.

"What are your reasons," I demanded, "for thinking the poisoning that
has taken place here was the work of the Yellow Domino?"

"Do you ask me?" he retorted, after a moment's pause, during which my
voice echoed through the room, waking strange gleams of doubt on the
faces of more than one person present. "You wish to dare me, then?" he
hissed, coming a step nearer.

"I wish to know what the Yellow Domino has done that you or any one
should consider him as responsible for the tragedy that has here taken
place," I steadily replied.

"Are you not my brother, then?" he cried, in mingled rage and anxiety.
"Was it not you I met under the evergreens and supplied with a yellow
domino, in order to give you the opportunity of seeing our father
to-night and effecting the reconciliation which you had so long desired?
Are you not he who afterward followed me to this room and hid himself in
the closet from which you have just come, all for the purpose, as you
said, of throwing yourself at your father's feet and begging pardon for
a past of which you had long ago repented? Or are you some reckless
buffoon who has presumed to step into the domino my brother left behind
him, and careless of the terrible trouble that has overwhelmed this
family, come here with your criminal jests to puzzle and alarm us?"

"I am the man to whom you gave the domino, if that is what you wish to
know, Hartley Benson; and I am the man whom you led into the ambush of
this closet, for such reasons as your own conscience must inform you. If
the Yellow Domino put poison into Mr. Benson's wine, then upon me must
lie the burden of the consequences, for I alone have worn the disguise
of this mask from the moment we met under the evergreens till now, as I
think may be proved by this gentleman you call Uncle Joe, and this lady
you address as Edith."

This mode of attack had the desired effect.

"Who are you?" burst from Hartley's lips, now blanched to the color of
clay. "Unmask him, doctor; let us see the man who dares to play us
tricks on such a night as this!"

"Wait!" cried I, motioning back not only the doctor, but Uncle Joe and
the ladies--the whole group having started forward at Hartley's wor