he whole business. I was beginning to have Tom on
the brain. He came to live on my nerves, and to haunt my dreams, and to
raise ghosts for me. He is gone two years, and Mrs. Tom is in Europe
with her baby and Tom's aunt Quincy. When I get over my present trouble,
and get back a clear brain, I shall take up the search. I shall find him
yet. I'd like to show some of the documents, but the matter is still
confidential, and I must keep quiet, though I don't suppose you know any
of the parties. When I find him I shall finish the story for you."

"You will never find him," said Honora with emphasis. "That fearful
woman shattered his very soul. I know the sort of a man he was. He will
never go back. If he can bear to live, it will be because in his
obscurity God gave him new faith and hope in human nature, and in the
woman's part of it."

"I shall find him," said the detective.

"You won't," said Grahame. "I'll wager he has been so close to you all
this time, that you cannot recognize him. That man is living within your
horizon, if he's living at all. Probably he has aided you in your
search. You wouldn't be the first detective fooled in that game."

The Captain made no reply, but went off to see how his ship was bearing
the storm. The little company fell silent, perhaps depressed by the
sounds of tempest without and the thought of the poor soul whose
departure from life had been so strange. Arthur sat thinking of many
things. He remembered the teaching that to God the past, present, and
future are as one living present. Here was an illustration: the old past
and the new present side by side to-night in the person of this
detective. What a giant hand was that which could touch him, and fail to
seize only because the fingers did not know their natural prey. No doubt
that the past is more a part of a man than his heart, for here was every
nerve of his body tingling to turn traitor to his will. Horace Endicott,
so long stilled that he thought him dead, rose from his sleep at the
bidding of the detective, and fought to betray Arthur Dillon. The blush,
the trembling of the hands, the tension of the muscles, the misty eye,
the pallor of the cheek, the tremulous lip, the writhing tongue, seemed
to put themselves at the service of Endicott, and to fight for the
chance to betray the secret to Curran. He sat motionless, fighting,
fighting; until after a little he felt a delightful consciousness of the
strength of Dillon, as of a ramp