lassed patriots with
pickles, became what you know me to be. I learned what love is, the love
of one's own; of mother, and friend, and clan. Let me not boast, but I
learned to know God and perhaps to love Him, at least since I am
resigned to His will. But I am talking too much, since it is for the
last time."

"You have not ended," said she beseechingly.

"It would take a lifetime," and he looked to see if she would give him
that time, but her eyes watched the lake. "The latest events in my
history took place this summer, and you had a little share in them. By
guess-work Colette arrived at the belief that I am Horace Endicott, and
she set her detective-husband to discover the link between Endicott and
Dillon. I helped him, because I was curious to see how Arthur Dillon
would stand the test of direct pursuit. They could discover nothing. As
fast as a trace of me showed it vanished into thin air. There was
nothing to do but invent a suit which would bring my mother, Monsignor,
and myself into court, and have us declare under oath who is Arthur
Dillon. I blocked that game perfectly. Messalina has her divorce from
Horace Endicott, and is married to her lover. There will be no further
search for the man who disappeared. And I am free, Monsignor declares.
No ties bind me to that shameful past. I have had my vengeance without
publicity or shame to anyone. I have punished as I had the right to
punish. I have a noble place in life, which no one can take from me."

"And did you meet her since you left her ... that woman?" Honora said in
a low voice half ashamed of the question.

"At Castle Moyna ..." he began and stopped dead at a sudden
recollection.

"I met her," cried Honora with a stifled scream, "I met her."

"I met her again on the steamer returning," he said after a pause. "She
did not recognize me, nor has she ever. We met for the last time in
July. At that meeting Arthur Dillon pronounced sentence on her in the
name of Horace Endicott. She will never wish to see me or her lost
husband again."

"Oh, how you must have suffered, Arthur, how you must have suffered!"

She had grown pale alarmingly, but he did not perceive it. The critical
moment had come for him, and he was praying silently against the
expected blow. Her resolution had left her, and the road had vanished in
the obscurity of night. She no longer saw her way clear. Her nerves had
been shaken by this wonderful story, and the surges of feeling that rose