ne, and
that therefore they could not trace it to me.

"I did not imagine for a moment that Luke could be accused of a crime
which he had not committed. I did not think that justice could be so
blind.

"All I wanted was to be rid of my tyrant, and that Luke's inheritance
should not be filched from him."

CHAPTER XLII

WHICH TELLS ONCE MORE OF COMMONPLACE INCIDENTS

The note-book fell out of Louisa's hands on to her lap. How simple the
tragedy seemed, now that she knew. How understandable was the mystery
of Luke's silence. He knew that "Uncle Rad" was guilty. There lay the
awful difficulty!

"Uncle Rad has been father, mother, brother, sister to us all! Bless
him!" that was Luke's feeling with regard to Uncle Rad.

The un-understandable was so simple after all!

Louisa went back to the sitting-room. The two men were sitting,
smoking in silence. Colonel Harris, too, understood the mystery at
last. His loyalty was crowned with the halo of justification.

* * * * *

The public never knew, I think, that Luke de Mountford had actually
been arrested for the murder of the Clapham Road bricklayer. The
police the next day applied for a remand and then Luke was brought
quietly before the magistrate and equally quietly dismissed.

He was free to go and see Uncle Rad.

Louisa did not see him the whole of that day, for he sat by the
bedside of the sick man whose strange and perturbed spirit was slowly
sinking to rest. Uncle Rad was at peace, for he held the hand and
looked into the face of the man on whom he had lavished the storehouse
of an affection that had known no bounds.

The two men understood each other perfectly. He who had committed a
crime, and he who was ready to bear its burden, both had done their
share for the other's sake.

It was only after the magnificent obsequies of the Earl of Radclyffe
that the truth about the murder of the bricklayer's son was made known
to the public at large.

It had to be done for Luke's sake. Colonel Harris insisted upon it
with all the weight of his fatherly authority. Sir Thomas Ryder did
likewise.

For Louisa's sake, too, it had to be. But, twenty-four hours before
the publication of the confession in the newspapers, Luke and Louisa
had been quietly married by special license, and had gone abroad.

Once more we must think of them as the commonplace, conventional man
and woman of the world, who outwardly behaved just like thous