RECALLED TO LIFE

BY GRANT ALLEN

CONTENTS. 

I. UNA CALLINGHAM'S FIRST RECOLLECTION

II. BEGINNING LIFE AGAIN

III. AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

IV. THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS

V. I BECOME A WOMAN

VI. RE-LIVING MY LIFE

VII. THE GRANGE AT WOODBURY

VIII. A VISION OF DEAD YEARS

IX. HATEFUL SUSPICIONS

X. YET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH

XI. THE VISION RECURS

XII. THE MOORES OF TORQUAY

XIII. DR. IVOR OF BABBICOMBE

XIV. MY WELCOME TO CANADA

XV. A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

XVI. MY PLANS ALTER

XVII. A STRANGE RECOGNITION

XVIII. MURDER WILL OUT

XIX. THE REAL MURDERER

XX. THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA

XXI. THE PLOT UNRAVELS ITSELF

XXII. MY MEMORY RETURNS

XXIII. THE FATAL SHOT

XXIV. ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

CHAPTER I. 

UNA CALLINGHAM'S FIRST RECOLLECTION

It may sound odd to say so, but the very earliest fact thatimpressed itself on my memory was a scene that took place--so I wastold--when I was eighteen years old, in my father's house, TheGrange, at Woodbury. 

My babyhood, my childhood, my girlhood, my school-days were allutterly blotted out by that one strange shock of horror. My pastlife became exactly as though it had never been. I forgot my ownname. I forgot my mother-tongue. I forgot everything I had ever doneor known or thought about. Except for the power to walk and standand perform simple actions of every-day use, I became a baby in armsagain, with a nurse to take care of me. The doctors told me, later, I had fallen into what they were pleased to call "a Second State. " Iwas examined and reported upon as a Psychological Curiosity. But atthe time, I knew nothing of all this. A thunderbolt, as it were, destroyed at one blow every relic, every trace of my previousexistence; and I began life all over again, with that terrible sceneof blood as my first birthday and practical starting point. 

I remember it all even now with horrible distinctness. Each item init photographed itself vividly on my mind's eye. I saw it as in apicture--just as clearly, just as visually. And the effect, now Ilook back upon it with a maturer judgment, was precisely like aphotograph in another way too. It was wholly unrelated in time andspace: it stood alone by itself, lighted up by a single spark, without rational connection before or after it. What led up to itall, I hadn't the very faintest idea. I only knew the Event itselftook place; and I, like a statue, stood rooted in the midst of it. 

And this was the Picture as, for many long months, it presenteditself incessantly to my startled brain, by day and by night, awakeor asleep, in colours more distinct than words can possibly paintthem. 

I saw myself standing in a large, square room--a very handsome oldroom, filled with bookshelves like a library. On one side stood atable, and on the table a box. A flash of light rendered the wholescene visible. But it wasn't light that came in through the window. It was rather like lightning, so quick it was, and clear, andshort-lived, and terrible. Half-way to the door, I stood and lookedin horror at the sight revealed before my eyes by that sudden flash. A man lay dead in a little pool of blood that gurgled by short jetsfrom a wound on his left breast. I didn't even know at the momentthe man was my father; though slowly, afterward, by the concurrenttestimony of others, I learnt to call him so. But his relationshipwasn't part of the Picture to me. There, he was only in my eyes aman--a man well past middle age, with a long white beard, nowdabbled with the thick blood that kept gurgling so hatefully fromthe red spot in his waistcoat. He lay on his back, half-curled roundtoward one arm, exactly as he fell. And the revolver he had beenshot with lay on the ground not far from him. 

But that wasn't all the Picture. The murderer was there as well asthe victim. Besides the table, and the box, and the wounded man, andthe pistol, I saw another figure behind, getting out of the window. It was the figure of a man, I should say about twenty-five orthirty: he had just raised himself to the ledge, and was poising toleap; for the room, as I afterwards learned, though on the groundfloor, stood raised on a basement above the garden behind. Icouldn't see the man's face, or any part of him, indeed, except hisstooping back, and his feet, and his neck, and his elbows. But whatlittle I saw was printed indelibly on the very fibre of my nature. Icould have recognised that man anywhere if I saw him in the sameattitude. I could have sworn to him in any court of justice on thestrength of his back alone, so vividly did I picture it. 

He was tall and thin, but he stooped like a hunchback. 

There were other points worth notice in that strange mentalphotograph. The man was well-dressed, and had the bearing of agentleman. Looking back upon the scene long after, when I hadlearned once more what words and things meant, I could feelinstinctively this was no common burglar, no vulgar murderer. Whatever might have been the man's object in shooting my father, Iwas certain from the very first it was not mere robbery. But at thetime, I'm confident, I never reasoned about his motives or hisactions in any way. I merely took in the scene, as it were, passively, in a great access of horror, which rendered me incapableof sense or thought or speech or motion. I saw the table, the box, the apparatus by its side, the murdered man on the floor, the pistollying pointed with its muzzle towards his body, the pool of bloodthat soaked deep into the Turkey carpet beneath, the ledge of thewindow, the young man's rounded back as he paused and hesitated. AndI also saw, like an instantaneous flash, one hand pushed behind him, waving me off, I almost thought, with the gesture of one warning. 

Why didn't I remember the murderer's face? That puzzled me longafter. I must have seen him before: I must surely have been therewhen the crime was committed. I must have known at the momenteverything about it. But the blank that came over my memory, cameover it with the fatal shot. All that went before, was to me asthough it were not. I recollect vaguely, as the first point in mylife, that my eyes were shut hard, and darkness came over me. Whilethey were so shut, I heard an explosion. Next moment, I believe, Iopened them, and saw this Picture. No sensitive-plate could havephotographed it more instantaneously, as by an electric spark, thandid my retina that evening, as for months after I saw it all. Inanother moment, I shut my lids again, and all was over. There wasdarkness once more, and I was alone with my Horror. 

In years then to come, I puzzled my head much as to the meaning ofthe Picture. Gradually, step by step, I worked some of it out, withthe aid of my friends, and of the evidence tendered at the coroner'sinquest. But for the moment I knew nothing of all that. I was anewborn baby again. Only with this important difference. They sayour minds at birth are like a sheet of white paper, ready to takewhatever impressions may fall upon them. Mine was like a sheet allcovered and obscured by one hateful picture. It was weeks, I fancy, before I knew or was conscious of anything else but that. ThePicture and a great Horror divided my life between them. 

Recollect, I didn't even remember the murdered man was my father. Ididn't recognise the room as one in our own old house at Woodbury. Ididn't know anything at all except what I tell you here. I saw thecorpse, the blood, the box on the table, the wires by the side, thebottles and baths and plates of an amateur photographer's kit, without knowing what they all meant. I saw even the books not asbooks but as visible points of colour. It had something the effecton me that it might have upon anyone else to be dropped suddenly onthe stage of a theatre at the very moment when a hideous crime wasbeing committed, and to believe it real, or rather, to know it bysome vague sense as hateful and actual. 

Here my history began. I date from that Picture. My second babyhoodwas passed in the shadow of the abiding Horror. 

CHAPTER II. 

BEGINNING LIFE AGAIN

Wha happened after is far more vague to me. Compared with thevividness of that one initial Picture, the events of the next fewmonths have only the blurred indistinctness of all childishmemories. For I was a child once more, in all save stature, and hadto learn to remember things just like other children. 

I will try to tell the whole tale over again exactly as it thenstruck me. 

After the Picture, I told you, I shut my eyes in alarm for a second. When I opened them once more there was a noise, a very great noise, and my recollection is that people had burst wildly into the room, and were lifting the dead body, and bending over it in astonishment, and speaking loud to me, and staring at me. I believe they broke thedoor open, though that's rather inference than memory; I learnt itafterwards. Soon some of them rushed to the open window and lookedout into the garden. Then, suddenly, a man gave a shout, and leapingon to the sill, jumped down in pursuit, as I thought, of themurderer. As time went on, more people flocked in; and some of themlooked at the body and the pool of blood; and some of them turnedround and spoke to me. But what they said or what they meant Ihadn't the slightest idea. The noise of the pistol-shot still rangloud in my ears: the ineffable Horror still drowned all my senses. 

After a while, another man came in, with an air of authority, andfelt my pulse and my brow, and lifted me on to a sofa. But I didn'teven remember there was such a thing as a doctor. I lay there for awhile, quite dazed; and the man, who was kindly-looking andclose-shaven and fatherly, gave me something in a glass: after whichhe turned round and examined the body. He looked hard at therevolver, too, and chalked its place on the ground. Then I saw nomore, for two women lifted me in their arms and took me up to bed;and with that, the first scene of my childhood seemed to endentirely. 

I lay in bed for a day or two, during which time I was dimly awareof much commotion going on here and there in the house; and thedoctor came night and morning, and tended me carefully. I suppose Imay call him the doctor now, though at the time I didn't call himso--I knew him merely as a visible figure. I don't believe I THOUGHTat all during those earliest days, or gave things names in any knownlanguage. They rather passed before me dreamily in long procession, like a vague panorama. When people spoke to me, it was like thesound of a foreign tongue. I attached no more importance to anythingthey said than to the cawing of the rooks in the trees by therectory. 

At the end of five days, the doctor came once more, and watched me agreat deal, and spoke in a low voice with a woman in a white cap anda clean white apron who waited on me daily. As soon as he was gone, my nurse, as I learned afterwards to call her, --it's so hard not todrop into the language of everyday life when one has to describethings to other people, --my nurse got me up, with much ado andsolemnity, and dressed me in a new black frock, very dismal andugly, and put on me a black hat, with a dreary-looking veil; andtook me downstairs, with the aid of a man who wore a suit of blueclothes and a queer kind of helmet. The man was of the sort I nowcall a policeman. These pictures are far less definite in my mindthan the one that begins my second life; but still, in a vague kindof way, I pretty well remember them. 

On the ground floor, nurse made me walk; and I walked out to thedoor, where a cab was in waiting, drawn slowly by a pair of horses. People were looking on, on either side, between the door and thecab--great crowds of people, peering eagerly forward; and two moremen in blue suits were holding them off by main force from surgingagainst me and incommoding me. I don't think they wanted to hurt me:it was rather curiosity than anger I saw in their faces. But I wasafraid, and shrank back. They were eager to see me, however, andpressed forward with loud cries, so that the men in blue suits hadhard work to prevent them. 

I know now there were two reasons why they wanted to see me. I wasthe murdered man's daughter, and I was a Psychological Phenomenon. 

We drove away, through green lanes, in the cab, nurse and I; and inspite of the Horror, which surrounded me always, and the Picture, which recurred every time I shut my eyes to think, I enjoyed thatdrive very much, with all the fresh vividness of childish pleasure. Though I learnt later I was eighteen years old at least, I was in myinner self just like a baby of ten months, going ta-ta. At the endof the drive, we drew up sharp at a house, where some more men stoodabout, with red bands on their caps, and took boxes from the cab andput them into a van, while nurse and I got into a differentcarriage, drawn quickly by a thing that went puff-puff, puff-puff. Ididn't know it was a railway, and yet in a way I did. I half forgot, half remembered it. Things that I'd seen in my previous state seemedto come back to me, in fact, as soon as I saw them; or at least tobe more familiar to me than things I'd never seen before. Especiallyafterwards. But while things were remembered, persons, I foundby-and-by, were completely forgotten. Or rather, while I rememberedafter a while generalities, such as houses and men, recognising themin the abstract as a house, or a man, or a horse, or a baby, Iforgot entirely particulars, such as the names of people and theplaces I had lived in. Words soon came back to me: names and factswere lost: I knew the world as a whole, not my own old part in it. 

Well, not to make my story too long in these early childish stages, we went on the train, as it seemed to me, a long way across fieldsto Aunt Emma's. I didn't know she was Aunt Emma then for, indeed, Ihad never seen her before; but I remember arriving there at herpretty little cottage, and seeing a sweet old lady--barely sixty, Ishould say, but with smooth white hair, --who stood on the steps ofthe house and cried like a child, and held out her hands to me, andhugged me and kissed me. And it was there that I learned my firstword. A great many times over, she spoke about "Una. " She said it sooften, I caught vaguely at the sound. And nurse, when she answeredher, said "Una" also. Then, when Aunt Emma called me, she alwayssaid "Una. " So it came to me dimly that Una meant ME. But I didn'texactly recollect it had been my name before, though I learned indue time afterwards that I'd always been called so. However, just atfirst, I picked up the word as a child might pick it up; and when, some months later, I began to talk easily, I spoke of myself alwaysin the third person as Una. I can remember with a smile now how Iwent one day to Aunt Emma--I, a great girl of eighteen--and held upmy skirt, that I'd muddied in the street, and said to her, withgreat gravity:

"Una naughty girl: Una got her frock wet. Aunt Emma going to scoldpoor Una for being so naughty!"

Not that I often smiled, in those days; for, in spite of Aunt Emma'skindness, my second girlhood, like my first, was a very unhappy one. The Horror and the Picture pursued me too close. It was months andmonths before I could get rid for a moment of that persistentnightmare. And yet I had everything else on earth to make me happy. Aunt Emma lived in a pretty east-coast town, with high bracken-claddowns, and breezy common beyond; while in front stretched greatsands, where I loved to race about and to play cricket and tennis. It was the loveliest town that ever you saw in your life, with abroken chancel to the grand old church, and a lighthouse on a hill, with delicious views to seaward. The doctor had sent me there (Iknow now) as soon as I was well enough to move, in order to get meaway from the terrible associations of The Grange at Woodbury. Aslong as I lived in the midst of scenes which would remind me of poorfather, he said, and of his tragical death, there was no hope of myrecovery. The only chance for me to regain what I had lost in thatmoment of shock was complete change of air, of life, ofsurroundings. Aunt Emma, for her part, was only too glad to take mein: and as poor papa had died intestate, Aunt Emma was now, ofcourse, my legal guardian. 

She was my mother's sister, I learned as time went on; and there hadbeen feud while he lived between her and my father. Why, I couldn'timagine. She was the sweetest old soul I ever knew, indeed, and whaton earth he could have quarrelled with her about I never couldfathom. She tended me so carefully that as months went by, theHorror began to decrease and my soul to become calm again. I grewgradually able to remain in a room alone for a few minutes at atime, and to sleep at night in a bed by myself, if only there was acandle, and nurse was in another bed in the same room close by me. 

Yet every now and again a fresh shivering fit came on. At such timesI would cover my head with the bedclothes and cower, and see thePicture even so floating visibly in mid-air like a vision before me. 

My second education must have been almost as much of a business asmy first had been, only rather less longsome. I had first to relearnthe English language, which came back to me by degrees, muchquicker, of course, than I had picked it up in my childhood. Then Ihad to begin again with reading, writing, and arithmetic--all newto me in a way, and all old in another. Whatever I learned andwhatever I read seemed novel while I learned it, but familiar themoment I had thoroughly grasped it. To put it shortly, I couldremember nothing of myself, but I could recall many things, after atime, as soon as they were told me clearly. The process was rather aprocess of reminding than of teaching, properly so called. But ittook some years for me to recall things, even when I was reminded ofthem. 

I spent four years at Aunt Emma's, growing gradually to my own ageagain. At the end of that time I was counted a girl of twenty-two, much like any other. But I was older than my age; and the shadow ofthe Horror pursued me incessantly. 

All that time I knew, too, from what I heard said in the house thatmy father's murderer had never been caught, and that nobody evenknew who he was, or anything definite about him. The police gave himup as an uncaught criminal. He was still at large, and might alwaysbe so. I knew this from vague hints and from vague hints alone; forwhenever I tried to ask, I was hushed up at once with an air ofauthority. 

"Una, dearest, " Aunt Emma would say, in her quiet fashion, "youmustn't talk about that night. I have Dr. Wade's strict orders thatnothing must be said to you about it, and above all nothing thatcould in any way excite or arouse you. "

So I was fain to keep my peace; for though Aunt Emma was kind, sheruled me still in all things like a little girl, as I was when Icame to her. 

CHAPTER III. 

AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR

One morning, after I'd been four whole years at Aunt Emma's, I hearda ring at the bell, and, looking over the stairs, saw a tall andhandsome man in a semi-military coat, who asked in a most audiblevoice for Miss Callingham. 

Maria, the housemaid, hesitated a moment. 

"Miss Callingham's in, sir, " she answered in a somewhat dubioustone; "but I don't know whether I ought to let you see her or not. My mistress is out; and I've strict orders that no strangers are tocall on Miss Callingham when her aunt's not here. "

And she held the door ajar in her hand undecidedly. 

The tall man smiled, and seemed to me to slip a coin quietly intoMaria's palm. 

"So much the better, " he answered, with unobtrusive persistence; "Ithought Miss Moore was out. That's just why I've come. I'm an officerfrom Scotland Yard, and I want to see Miss Callingham--alone--mostparticularly. "

Maria drew herself up and paused. 

My heart stood still within me at this chance of enlightenment. Iguessed what he meant; so I called over the stairs to her, in atremor of excitement:

"Show the gentleman into the drawing-room, Maria. I 'll come down tohim at once. "

For I was dying to know the explanation of the Picture that hauntedme so persistently; and as nobody at home would ever tell meanything worth knowing about it, I thought this was as good anopportunity as I could get for making a beginning towards thesolution of the mystery. 

Well, I ran into my own room as quick as quick could be, and set myfront hair straight, and slipped on a hat and jacket (for I was inmy morning dress), and then went down to the drawing-room to see theInspector. 

He rose as I entered. He was a gentleman, I felt at once. His mannerwas as deferential, as kind, and as considerate to my sensitiveness, as anything it's possible for you to imagine in anyone. 

"I'm sorry to have to trouble you, Miss Callingham, " he said, with avery gentle smile; "but I daresay you can understand yourself theobject of my visit. I could have wished to come in a more authorisedway; but I've been in correspondence with Miss Moore for some timepast as to the desirability of reopening the inquiry with regard toyour father's unfortunate death; and I thought the time might nowhave arrived when it would be possible to put a few questions to youpersonally upon that unhappy subject. Miss Moore objected to myplan. She thought it would still perhaps be prejudicial to yourhealth--a point in which Dr. Wade, I must say, entirely agrees withher. Nevertheless, in the interests of Justice, as the murderer isstill at large, I've ventured to ask you for this interview; becausewhat I read in the newspapers about the state of your health--. "

I interrupted him, astonished. 

"What you read in the newspapers about the state of my health!" Irepeated, thunderstruck. "Why, surely they don't put the state of MYhealth in the newspapers!"

For I didn't know then I was a Psychological Phenomenon. 

The Inspector smiled blandly, and pulling out his pocket-book, selected a cutting from a pile that apparently all referred to me. 

"You're mistaken, " he said, briefly. "The newspapers, on thecontrary, have treated your case at great length. See, here's thelatest report. That's clipped from last Wednesday's Telegraph. "

I remembered then that a paragraph of just that size had beencarefully cut out of Wednesday's paper before I was allowed by AuntEmma to read it. Aunt Emma always glanced over the paper first, indeed, and often cut out such offending paragraphs. But I neverattached much importance to their absence before, because I thoughtit was merely a little fussy result of auntie's good old Englishsense of maidenly modesty. I supposed she merely meant to spare myblushes. I knew girls were often prevented on particular days fromreading the papers. 

But now I seized the paragraph he handed me, and read it with deepinterest. It was the very first time I had seen my own name in aprinted newspaper. I didn't know then how often it had figuredthere. 

The paragraph was headed, "THE WOODBURY MURDER, " and it ransomething like this, as well as I can remember it:

"There are still hopes that the miscreant who shot Mr. VivianCallingham at The Grange, at Woodbury, some four years since, may betracked down and punished at last for his cowardly crime. It will befresh in everyone's memory, as one of the most romantic episodes inthat extraordinary tragedy, that at the precise moment of herfather's death, Miss Callingham, who was present in the room duringthe attack, and who alone might have been a witness capable ofrecognising or describing the wretched assailant, lost her reason onthe spot, owing to the appalling shock to her nervous system, andremained for some months in an imbecile condition. Gradually, as wehave informed our readers from time to time, Miss Callingham'sintellect has become stronger and stronger; and though she is stilltotally unable to remember spontaneously any events that occurredbefore her father's death, it is hoped it may be possible, bydescribing vividly certain trains of previous incidents, to recallthem in some small degree to her imperfect memory. Dr. Thornton, ofWelbeck Street, who has visited her from time to time on behalf ofthe Treasury, in conjunction with Dr. Wade, her own medicalattendant, went down to Barton-on-the-Sea on Monday, and once moreexamined Miss Callingham's intellect. Though the Doctor isjudiciously reticent as to the result of his visit, it is generallybelieved at Barton that he thinks the young lady sufficientlyrecovered to undergo a regular interrogatory; and in spite of thefact that Dr. Wade is opposed to any such proceeding at present, asprejudicial to the lady's health, it is not unlikely that theTreasury may act upon their own medical official's opinion, and senddown an Inspector from Scotland Yard to make inquiries direct on thesubject from Miss Callingham in person. "

My head swam round. It was all like a dream to me. I held myforehead with my hands, and gazed blankly at the Inspector. 

"You understand what all this means?" he said interrogatively, leaning forward as he spoke. "You remember the murder?"

"Perfectly, " I answered him, trembling all over. "I remember everydetail of it. I could describe you exactly all the objects in theroom. The Picture it left behind has burned itself into my brainlike a flash of lightning!"

The Inspector drew his chair nearer. "Now, Miss Callingham, " he saidin a very serious voice, "that's a remarkable expression--like aflash of lightning. ' Bear in mind, this is a matter of life anddeath to somebody somewhere. Somebody's neck may depend upon youranswers. Will you tell me exactly how much you remember?"

I told him in a few words precisely how the scene had imprinteditself on my memory. I recalled the room, the box, the green wires, the carpet; the man who lay dead in his blood on the floor; the manwho stood poised ready to leap from the window. He let me go onunchecked till I'd finished everything I had to say spontaneously. Then he took a photograph from his pocket, which he didn't show me. Looking at it attentively, he asked me questions, one by one, aboutthe different things in the room at the time in very minute detail:Where exactly was the box? How did it stand relatively to theunlighted lamp? What was the position of the pistol on the floor? Inwhich direction was my father's head lying? Though it brought backthe Horror to me in a fuller and more terrible form than ever, Ianswered all his questions to the very best of my ability. I couldpicture the whole scene like a photograph to myself; and I didn'tdoubt the object he held in his hand was a photograph of the room asit appeared after the murder. He checked my statements, one by oneas I went on, by reference to the photograph, murmuring half tohimself now and again: "Yes, yes, exactly so"; "That's right"; "Thatwas so, " at each item I mentioned. 

At the end of these inquiries, he paused and looked hard at me. 

"Now, Miss Callingham, " he said again, peering deep into my eyes, "Iwant you to concentrate your mind very much, not on this Picture youcarry so vividly in your own brain, but on the events that wentimmediately before and after it. Pause long and think. Try hard toremember. And first, you say there was a great flash of light. Now, answer me this: was it one flash alone, or had there been several?"

I stopped and racked my brain. Blank, blank, as usual. 

"I can't remember, " I faltered out, longing terribly to cry. "I canrecall just that one scene, and nothing else in the world beforeit. "

He looked at me fixedly, jotting down a few words in his note-bookas he looked. Then he spoke again, still more slowly:

"Now, try once more, " he said, with an encouraging air. "You sawthis man's back as he was getting out of the window. But can't youremember having seen his face before? Had he a beard? a moustache?what eyes? what nose? Did you see the shot fired? And if so, whatsort of person was the man who fired it?"

Again I searched the pigeon-holes of my memory in vain, as I haddone a hundred times before by myself. 

"It's no use, " I cried helplessly, letting my hands drop by my side. "I can't remember a thing, except the Picture. I don't know whetherI saw the shot fired or not. I don't know what the murderer lookedlike in the face. I've told you all I know. I can recall nothingelse. It's all a great blank to me. "

The Inspector hesitated a moment, as if in doubt what step to takenext. Then he drew himself up and said, still more gravely:

"This inability to assist us is really very singular. I had hoped, after Dr. Thornton's report, that we might at last count with somecertainty upon arriving at fresh results as to the actual murder. Ican see from what you tell me you're a young lady ofintelligence--much above the average--and great strength of mind. It's curious your memory should fail you so pointedly just where westand most in need of its aid. Recollect, nobody else but you eversaw the murderer's face. Now, I'm going to presume you're answeringme honestly, and try a bold means to arouse your dormant memory. Look hard, and hark back. --Is that the room you recollect? Is thatthe picture that still haunts and pursues you?"

He handed me the photograph he held in his fingers. I took it, allon fire. The sight almost made me turn sick with horror. To my aweand amazement, it was indeed the very scene I remembered so well. Only, of course, it was taken from another point of view, andrepresented things in rather different relative positions to those Ifigured them in. But it showed my father's body lying dead upon thefloor; it showed his poor corpse weltering helpless in its blood; itshowed myself, as a girl of eighteen, standing awestruck, gazing onin blank horror at the sight; and in the background, half blurred bythe summer evening light, it showed the vague outline of a man'sback, getting out of the window. On one side was the door: thatformed no part of my mental picture, because it was at my back; butin the photograph it too was indistinct, as if in the very act ofbeing burst open. The details were vague, in part--probably thepicture had never been properly focussed;--but the main figuresstood out with perfect clearness, and everything in the room was, allowing for the changed point of view, exactly as I remembered itin my persistent mental photograph. 

I drew a deep breath. 

"That's my Picture, " I said, slowly. "But it recalls to me nothingnew. I--I don't understand it. "

The Inspector stared at me hard once more. 

"Do you know, " he asked, "how that photograph was produced, and howit came into our possession?"

I trembled violently. 

"No, I don't, " I answered, reddening. "But--I think it had somethingto do with the flash like lightning. "

The Inspector jumped at those words like a cat upon a mouse. 

"Quite right, " he cried briskly, as one who at last, after longsearch, finds a hopeful clue where all seemed hopeless. "It had todo with the flash. The flash produced it. This is a photograph takenby your father's process. . . . Of course you recollect your father'sprocess?"

He eyed me close. The words, as he spoke them, seemed to call updimly some faint memory of my pre-natal days--of my First State, asI had learned from the doctors to call it. But his scrutiny made meshrink. I shut my eyes and looked back. 

"I think, " I said slowly, rummaging my memory half in vain, "Iremember something about it. It had something to do withphotography, hadn't it?. . . No, no, with the electric light. . . . Ican't exactly remember which. Will you tell me all about it?"

He leaned back in his chair, and, eyeing me all the time with thatsame watchful glance, began to describe to me in some detail anapparatus which he said my father had devised, for takinginstantaneous photographs by the electric light, with a clockworkmechanism. It was an apparatus that let sensitive-plates revolve oneafter another opposite the lens of a camera; and as each wasexposed, the clockwork that moved it produced an electric spark, soas to represent such a series of effects as the successive positionsof a horse in trotting. My father, it seemed, was of a scientificturn, and had just perfected this new automatic machine before hissudden death. I listened with breathless interest; for up to thattime I had never been allowed to hear anything about myfather--anything about the great tragedy with which my second lifebegan. It was wonderful to me even now to be allowed to speak andask questions on it with anybody. So hedged about had I been all mydays with mystery. 

As I listened, I saw the Inspector could tell by the answering flashin my eye that his words recalled SOMETHING to me, however vaguely. As he finished, I leant forward, and with a very flushed face, thatI could feel myself, I cried, in a burst of recollection:

"Yes, yes. I remember. And the box on the table--the box that's inmy mental picture, and is not in the photograph--THAT was theapparatus you've just been describing. "

The Inspector turned upon me with a rapidity that fairly took mybreath away. 

"Well, where are the other ones?" he asked, pouncing down upon mequite fiercely. 

"The other WHAT?" I repeated, amazed; for I didn't really understandhim. 

"Why, the other photographs!" he replied, as if trying to surpriseme. "There must have been more, you know. It held six plates. Exceptfor this one, the apparatus, when we found it, was empty. "

His manner seemed to crush out the faint spark of recollection thatjust flickered within me. I collapsed at once. I couldn't stand suchbrusqueness. 

"I don't know what you mean, " I answered in despair. "I never sawthe plates. I know nothing about them. "

CHAPTER IV. 

THE STORY OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS

The Inspector scanned me close for a few minutes in silence. Heseemed doubtful, suspicious. At last he made a new move. "I believeyou, Miss Callingham, " he said, more gently. "I can see this trainof thought distresses you too much. But I can see, too, our bestchance lies in supplying you with independent clues which you maywork out for yourself. You must re-educate your memory. You want toknow all about this murder, of course. Well, now, look over thesepapers. They'll tell you in brief what little we know about it. Andthey may succeed in striking afresh some resonant chord in yourmemory. "

He handed me a book of pasted newspaper paragraphs, interspersedhere and there in red ink with little manuscript notes and comments. I began to read it with profound interest. It was so strange for methus to learn for the first time the history of my own life; for Iwas quite ignorant as yet of almost everything about my First State, and my father and mother. 

The paragraphs told me the whole story of the crime, as far as itwas known to the world, from the very beginning. First of all, inthe papers, came the bald announcement that a murder had beencommitted in a country town in Staffordshire; and that the victimwas Mr. Vivian Callingham, a gentleman of means, residing in his ownhouse, The Grange, at Woodbury. Mr. Callingham was the inventor ofthe acmegraphic process. The servants, said the telegram to theLondon papers, had heard the sound of a pistol-shot, about half-pasteight at night, coming from the direction of Mr. Callingham'slibrary. Aroused by the report, they rushed hastily to the spot, andbroke open the door, which was locked from within. As they did so, ahorrible sight met their astonished eyes. Mr. Callingham's dead bodylay extended on the ground, shot right through the heart, andweltering in its life-blood. Miss Callingham stood by his side, transfixed with horror, and mute in her agony. On the floor lay thepistol that had fired the fatal shot. And just as the servantsentered, for one second of time, the murderer who was otherwisewholly unknown, was seen to leap from the window into the shrubberybelow. The gardener rushed after him, and jumped down at the samespot. But the murderer had disappeared as if by magic. It wasconjectured he must have darted down the road at full speed, vaultedthe gate, which was usually locked, and made off at a rapid run forthe open country. Up to date of going to press, the Telegraph said, he was still at large and had not been apprehended. 

That was the earliest account--bald, simple, unvarnished. Then camemysterious messages from the Central Press about the absence of anyclue to identify the stranger. He hadn't entered the house by anyregular way, it seemed; unless, indeed, Mr. Callingham had broughthim home himself and let him in with the latchkey. None of theservants had opened the door that evening to any suspiciouscharacter; not a soul had they seen, nor did any of them know a manwas with their master in the library. They heard voices, to besure--voices, loud at times and angry, --but they supposed it was Mr. Callingham talking with his daughter. Till roused by the fatalpistol-shot, the gardener said, they had no cause for alarm. Eventhe footmarks the stranger might have left as he leaped from thewindow were obliterated by the prints of the gardener's boots as hejumped hastily after him. The only person who could cast any lightupon the mystery at all was clearly Miss Callingham, who was in theroom at the moment. But Miss Callingham's mind was completelyunhinged for the present by the nervous shock she had received asher father fell dead before her. They must wait a few days till sherecovered consciousness, and then they might confidently hope thatthe murderer would be identified, or at least so described that thepolice could track him. 

After that, I read the report of the coroner's inquest. The factsthere elicited added nothing very new to the general view of thecase. Only, the servants remarked on examination, there was astrange smell of chemicals in the room when they entered; and thedoctors seemed to suggest that the smell might be that ofchloroform, mixed with another very powerful drug known to affectthe memory. Miss Callingham's present state, they thought, mightthus perhaps in part be accounted for. 

You can't imagine how curious it was for me to see myself thusimpersonally discussed at such a distance of time, or to learn solong after that for ten days or more I had been the central objectof interest to all reading England. My name was bandied aboutwithout the slightest reserve. I trembled to see how cavalierly thepress had treated me. 

As I went on, I began to learn more and more about my father. He hadmade money in Australia, it was said, and had come to live atWoodbury some fourteen years earlier, where my mother had died whenI was a child of four; and some accounts said she was a widow offortune. My father had been interested in chemistry and photography, it seemed, and had lately completed a new invention, the acmegraph, for taking successive photographs at measured intervals of so manyseconds by electric light. He was a grave, stern man, the paperssaid, more feared than loved by his servants and neighbours; butnobody about was known to have a personal grudge against him. On thecontrary, he lived at peace with all men. The motive for the murderremained to the end a complete mystery. 

On the second morning of the inquest, however, a curious thinghappened. The police, it appeared, had sealed up the room where themurder took place, and allowed nobody to enter it till the inquirywas over. But after the jury came round to view the room, thepoliceman in charge found the window at the back of the house hadbeen recently opened, and the box with the photographic apparatushad been stolen from the library. Till that moment nobody hadattached any importance to the presence of this camera. It hadn'teven been opened and examined by the police, who had carefully notedeverything else in the library. But as soon as the box was missedstrange questions began to be asked and conjecturally answered. Thepolice for the first time then observed that though it was half-pasteight at night when the murder occurred, and the lamp was notlighted, the witnesses who burst first into the room described allthey saw as if they had seen it clearly. They spoke of things asthey would be seen in a very bright light, with absolutedefiniteness. This set up inquiry, and the result of the inquiry wasto bring out the fact, which in the excitement of the moment hadescaped the notice of all the servants, that as they entered theroom and stared about at the murder, the electric flash of theapparatus was actually in operation. But the scene itself haddiverted their attention from the minor matter of the light thatshowed it. 

The Inspector had been watching me narrowly as I read theseextracts. When I reached that point, he broke in with a word ofexplanation. 

"Well, that put me on the track, you see, " he said, leaning forwardonce more. "I thought to myself, if the light was acting, then thewhole apparatus must necessarily have been at work, and the scene asit took place must have been photographed, act by act and step bystep, exactly as it happened. At the time the murderer, whoever hewas, can't have known the meaning of the flashes. But later, he musthave come to learn in some way what the electric light meant, andmust have realised, sooner than we did, that therein the box, in theform of six successive negatives of the stages in the crime, was theevidence that would infallibly convict him of this murder. " Hestroked his moustache thoughtfully. "And to think, too, " he went onwith a somewhat sheepish air, "we should have had those photographsthere in our power all those days and nights, and have let them inthe end slip like that through our fingers! To think he should havefound it out sooner than we! To think that an amateur like themurderer should have outwitted us!"

"But how do you know, " I cried, "there was ever more than onephotograph? How do you know this wasn't the only negative?"

"Because, " the Inspector answered quickly, pointing to a figure inthe corner of the proof, "do you see that six? Well, that tells thetale. Each plate of the series was numbered so in the apparatus. Number six could only fall into focus after numbers one, and two, and three, and four, and five, had first been photographed. We'veonly got the last--and least useful for our purpose. There must havebeen five earlier ones, showing every stage of the crime, if onlywe'd known it. "

I was worked up now to a strange pitch of excitement. 

"And how did this one come into your possession?" I asked, allbreathless. "If you managed to lay your hands on one, why not on allsix of them?"

The Inspector drew a long breath. 

"Ah, that's the trouble!" he replied, still gazing at me hard. "Yousee, it was this way. As soon as we found the camera was missing, wecame to the conclusion the murderer must have returned to The Grangeto fetch it. But it was a large and heavy box, and the only one ofits kind as yet manufactured; so, to carry it away in his handswould no doubt have led to instant detection. I concluded, therefore, the man would take off the box entire, so as to preventthe danger of removing the plates on the spot; and as soon as hereached a place of safety in the shrubbery, he'd fling away thecamera, either destroying the incriminating negatives then and thereor carrying them off with him. The details of the invention hadalready been explained to me by your father's instrument-maker, whoset up the clockwork for him from his own designs; and I knew thatthe removal of the plates from the box was a delicate, and to someextent a difficult, operation. So I felt sure they could only havebeen taken out in a place of comparative safety, not far from thehouse; and I searched the shrubbery carefully, to find the camera. "

"And you found it at last?" I asked, unable to restrain myagitation. 

"I found it at last, " he answered, "near the far end of the grounds, just flung into the deep grass, behind a clump of lilacs. The camerawas there intact, but five plates were missing. The sixth, fromwhich the positive you hold in your hand was taken, had got jammedin the mechanism in the effort to remove it. Evidently the murdererhad tried to take out the plates in a very great hurry and withtrembling hands, as was not unnatural. He had succeeded with five, when the sixth stuck fast in the groove of the clockwork. Just atthat moment, as we judged, either an alarm was raised in the rear, or some panic fear seized on him. Probably the fellow judged rightthat the most incriminating pictures of all had by that time beenremoved, and that the last would only show his back, if it includedhim at all, or if he came into focus. Perhaps he had even been ableunconsciously to count the flashes at the moment, and knew thatbefore the sixth flash arrived he was on the ledge of the window. Atany rate, he clearly gave up the attempt to remove the sixth, andflung the whole apparatus away from him in a sudden access ofhorror. We guessed as much both from the appearance of the spotwhere the grass was trampled down, and the way the angle of thecamera was imbedded forcibly in the soft ground of the shrubbery. "

"And he got away with the rest!" I exclaimed, following it up like astory, but a story in which I was myself an unconscious character. 

"No doubt, " the Inspector answered, stroking his chin regretfully. "And what's most annoying of all, we've every reason to suppose thefellow stole the things only a few minutes before we actually missedthem. For we saw grounds for supposing he jumped away from the spot, and climbed over the wall at the back, cutting his hands as he wentwith the bottle-glass on the top to prevent intruders. And whatmakes us think only a very short time must have elapsed between theremoval of the plates and the moment we came upon his tracks isthis--the blood from his cut hands was still fresh and wet upon thewall when we found it. "

"Then you only just missed him!" I exclaimed. "He got off by theskin of his teeth. It's wonderful, when you were so near, youshouldn't have managed to overtake him! One would have thought youmust have been able to track him to earth somehow!"

"One would have thought so, " the Inspector answered, rathercrestfallen. "But policemen, after all, are human like the rest ofus. We missed the one chance that might have led to an arrest. Andnow, what I want to ask you once more is this: Reflecting over whatyou've heard and read to-day, do you think you can recollect--avery small matter--whether or not there were SEVERAL distinctflashes?"

I shut my eyes once more, and looked hard into the past. Slowly, asI looked, a sort of dream seemed to come over me. I saw it vaguelynow, or thought I saw it. Flash, flash, flash, flash. Then the soundof the pistol. Then the Picture, and the Horror, and the awfulblank. I opened my eyes again, and told the Inspector so. 

"And once more, " he went on, in a very insinuating voice. "Shut youreyes again, and look back upon that day. Can't you remember whetheror not, just a moment before, you saw the murderer's face by thelight of the flashes?"

I shut my eyes and thought. Again the flashes seemed to stand outclear and distinct. But no detail supervened--no face came back tome. I felt it was useless. 

"Impossible!" I said shortly. "It only makes my head swim. I canremember no further. "

"I see, " the Inspector answered. "It's just as Dr. Wade said. Suggest a fact in your past history, and you may possibly rememberit; but ask you to recall anything not suggested or already known, and all seems a mere blank to you! You haven't the faintest idea, then, who the murderer was or what he looked like?"

I rose up before him solemnly, and stared him full in the face. Iwas wrought up by that time to a perfect pitch of excitement andinterest. 

"I haven't the faintest idea, " I answered, feeling myself a woman atlast, and realising my freedom; "I know and remember no more of itthan you do. But from this moment forth, I shall not rest until I'vefound him out and tracked him down, and punished him. I shall neverlet my head rest in peace on my pillow until I've discovered myfather's murderer!"

"That's well, " the Inspector said sharply, shutting his notes up togo. "If you persevere in that mind, and do as you say, we shall soonget to the bottom of the Woodbury Mystery!"

And even as he spoke a key turned in the front door. I knew it wasAunt Emma, come in from her marketing. 

CHAPTER V. 

I BECOME A WOMAN

Aunt Emma burst into the room, all horror and astonishment. Shelooked at the Inspector for a few seconds in breathless indignation;then she broke out in a tone of fiery remonstrance which fairlysurprised me:

"What do you mean by this intrusion, sir? How dare you force yourway into my house in my absence? How dare you encourage my servantsto disobey my orders? How dare you imperil this young lady's healthby coming here to talk with her?"

She turned round to me anxiously. I suppose I was very flushed withexcitement and surprise. 

"My darling child, " she cried, growing pale all at once, "Mariashould never have allowed him to come inside the door! You shouldhave stopped upstairs! You should have refused to see him! I shallhave you ill again on my hands, as before, after this. He'll haveundone all the good the last four years have done for you!"

But I was another woman now. I felt it in a moment. 

"Auntie dearest, " I answered, moving across to her, and laying myhand on her shoulder to soothe her poor ruffled nerves, "don't bethe least alarmed. It's I who'm to blame, and not Maria. I told herto let this gentleman in. He's done me good, not harm. I'm so gladto have been allowed at last to speak freely about it!"

Aunt Emma shook all over, visibly to the naked eye. 

"You'll have a relapse, my child!" she exclaimed, half crying, andclinging to me in her terror. "You'll forget all you've learned:you'll go back these four years again!--Leave my house at once, sir!You should never have entered it!"

I stood between them like a statue. 

"No, stop here a little longer, " I said, waving my hand towards himimperiously. "I haven't yet heard all it's right for me to hear. . . . Auntie, you mistake. I'm a woman at last. I see what everythingmeans. I'm beginning to remember again. For four years that hatefulPicture has haunted me night and day. I could never shut my eyes fora minute without seeing it. I've longed to know what it all meant;but whenever I've asked, I've been repressed like a baby. I'm a babyno longer: I feel myself a woman. What the Inspector here has toldme already, half opens my eyes: I must have them opened altogethernow. I can't stop at this point. I'm going back to Woodbury. "

Aunt Emma clung to me still harder in a perfect agony of passionateterror. 

"To Woodbury, my darling!" she cried. "Going back! Oh, Una, it'llkill you!"

"I think not, " the Inspector answered, with a very quiet smile. "Miss Callingham has recovered, I venture to say, far moreprofoundly than you imagine. This repression, our medical advisertells us, has been bad for her. If she's allowed to visit freely theplaces connected with her earlier life, it may all return again toher; and the ends of Justice may thus at last be served for us. Inotice already one hopeful symptom: Miss Callingham speaks of goingback to Woodbury. "

Aunt Emma looked up at him, horrified. All her firmness was gonenow. 

"It's YOU who've put this into her head!" she exclaimed, in aferment of horror. "She'd never thought of it herself. You've madeher do it!"

"On the contrary, auntie, " I answered, feeling my ground grow surerunder me every moment as I spoke, "this gentleman has never even bythe merest hint suggested such an idea to my mind. It occurred to mequite spontaneously. I MUST find out now who was my father'smurderer! All the Inspector has told me seems to arouse in my brainsome vague, forgotten chords. It brings back to me faint shadows. Ifeel sure if I went to Woodbury I should remember much more. Andthen, you must see for yourself, there's another reason, dear, thatought to make me go. Nobody but I ever saw the murderer's face. It'sa duty imposed upon me from without, as it were, never to rest againin peace till I've recognised him. "

Aunt Emma collapsed into an easy-chair. Her face was deadly pale. Her ringers trembled. 

"If you go, Una, " she cried, playing nervously with her gloves, "Imust go with you too! I must take care of you: I must watch overyou!"

I took her quivering hand in mine and stroked it gently. It was asoft and delicate white little hand, all marked inside with curiousragged scars that I'd known and observed ever since I first knewher. I held it in silence for a minute. Somehow I felt our positionswere reversed to-day. This interview had suddenly brought out what Iknow now to be my own natural and inherent character--self-reliant, active, abounding in initiative. For four years I had been as achild in her hands, through mere force of circumstances. My trueself came out now and asserted its supremacy. 

"No, dear, " I said, soothing her cheek; "I shall go alone. I shalltry what I can discover and remember myself without any suggestionor explanation from others. I want to find out how things reallystand. I shall set to work on my own account to unravel thismystery. "

"But how can you manage things by yourself?" Aunt Emma exclaimed, wringing her hands despondently. "A girl of your age! without even amaid! and all alone in the world! I shall be afraid to let you go. Dr. Wade won't allow it. "

I drew myself up very straight, and realised the position. 

"Aunt Emma, " I said plainly, in a decided voice, "I'm a full-grownwoman, over twenty-one years of age, mistress of my own acts, and nolonger a ward of yours. I can do as I like, and neither Dr. Wade noranybody else can prevent me. He may ADVICE me not to go: he has nopower to ORDER me. I'm my father's heiress, and a person ofindependent means. I've been a cipher too long. From to-day I takemy affairs wholly into my own hands. I 'll go round at once and seeyour lawyer, your banker, your agent, your tradesmen, and tell themthat henceforth I draw my own rents, I receive my own dividends, Ipay my own bills, I keep my own banking account. And to-morrow orthe next day I set out for Woodbury. "

The Inspector turned to Aunt Emma with a demonstrative smile. 

"There, you see for. Yourself, " he said, well pleased, "what thisinterview has done for her!"

But Aunt Emma only drew back, wrung her hands again in impotentdespair, and stared at him blankly like a wounded creature. 

The Inspector took up his hat to leave. I followed him out to thedoor, and shook hands with him cordially. The burden felt lighter onmy shoulders already. For four long years that mystery had hauntedme day and night, as a thing impenetrable, incomprehensible, noteven to be inquired about. The mere sense that I might now begin toask what it meant seemed to make it immediately less awful and lessburdensome to me. 

When I returned to the drawing-room, Aunt Emma sat there on thesofa, crying silently, the very picture of misery. 

"Una, " she said, without even raising her eyes to mine, "the man mayhave done as he says: he may have restored you your mind again; butwhat's that to me? He's lost me my child, my darling, my daughter!"

I stooped down and kissed her. Dear, tender-hearted auntie! she hadalways been very good to me. But I knew I was right, for all that, in becoming a woman, --in asserting my years, my independence, myfreedom, my duty. To have shirked it any longer would have beensheer cowardice. So I just kissed her silently, and went up to myown room--to put on my brown hat, and go out to the banker's. 

From that moment forth, one fierce desire in life alone possessedme. The brooding mystery that enveloped my life ceased to bepassive, and became an active goad, as it were, to push me forwardincessantly on my search for the runaway I was the creature of afixed idea. A fiery energy spurred me on all my time. I wasdetermined now to find out my father's murderer. I was determined toshake off the atmosphere of doubt and forgetfulness. I wasdetermined to recall those first scenes of my life that so eluded mymemory. 

Yet, strange to say, it was rather a burning curiosity and a deepsense of duty that urged me on, than anything I could properly callaffection--still less, revenge or malice. I didn't remember myfather as alive at all: the one thing I could recollect about himwas the ghastly look of that dead body, stretched at full length onthe library floor, with its white beard all dabbled in the red bloodthat clotted it. It was abstract zeal for the discovery of the truththat alone pushed me on. This search became to me henceforth an endand aim in itself. It stood out, as it were, visibly in theimperative mood: "go here;" "go there;" "do this;" "try that;""leave no stone unturned anywhere till you've tracked down themurderer!" Those were the voices that now incessantly thoughinaudibly pursued me. 

Next day I spent in preparations for my departure. I would hunt upWoodbury now, though fifty Aunt Emma's held their gentle old facesup in solemn warning against me. The day after that again, I set outon my task. The pull was hard. I had taken my own affairs entirelyinto my own hands by that time, and had provided myself with moneyfor a long stay at Woodbury. But it was the very first railwayjourney I could ever remember to have made alone; and I confess, when I found myself seated all by myself in a first-class carriage, with no friend beside me, my resolution for a moment almost brokedown again. It was so terrible to feel oneself boxed up there for anhour or two alone, with that awful Picture staring one in the faceall the time from every fence and field and wall and hoarding. Itobliterated Fry's Cocoa; it fixed itself on the yellow face ofColman's Mustard. 

I went by Liverpool Street, and drove across to Paddington. I hadnever, to my knowledge, been in London before: and it was all so newto me. But Liverpool Street was even newer to me than Paddington, Inoticed. A faint sense of familiarity seemed to hang about the GreatWestern line. And that was not surprising, I thought, as I turned itover; for, of course, in the old days, when we lived at Woodbury, Imust often have come down from town that way with my father. Yet Iremembered nothing of it all definitely; the most I could say wasthat I seemed dimly to recollect having been there before--thoughwhen or where or how, I hadn't the faintest notion. 

I was early at Paddington. The refreshment room somehow failed toattract me. I walked up and down the platform, waiting for my train. As I did so, a boy pasted a poster on a board: it was thecontents-sheet of one of the baser little Society papers. Somethingstrange in it caught my eye. I looked again in amazement. Oh, greatheavens! what was this in big flaring letters?

"MISS UNA CALLINGHAM AND THE WOODBURY MYSTERY! Is SHE SCREENING THEMURDERER? A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION!"

The words took my breath away. They were too horrible to realise. Ipositively couldn't speak. I went up to the bookstall, laid down mypenny without moving my lips, and took the paper in my hand intremulous silence. 

I dared not open it there and then, I confess. I waited till I wasin the train, and on my way to Woodbury. 

When I did so, it was worse, even worse than my fears. The articlewas short, but it was very hateful. It said nothing straightout--the writer had evidently the fear of the law of libel beforehis eyes as he wrote, --but it hinted and insinuated in a detestableundertone the most vile innuendoes. A Treasury Doctor and a PoliceInspector, it said, had lately examined Miss Callingham again, andfound her intellect in every respect perfectly normal, except thatshe couldn't remember the face of her father's murderer. Now, thiswas odd, because, you see, Miss Callingham was in the room at themoment the shot was fired; and, alone in the world, Miss Callinghamhad seen the face of the man who fired it. Who was that man? and whywas he there, unknown to the servants, in a room with nobody but Mr. Callingham and his daughter? A correspondent (who preferred to guardhis incognito) had suggested in this matter some very searchingquestions: Could the young man--for it was allowed he wasyoung--have been there with Miss Callingham when Mr. Callinghamentered? Could he have been on terms of close intimacy with theheroine of The Grange Mystery, who was a young lady--as all theworld knew from her photographs--of great personal attractiveness, and who was also the heiress to a considerable property? Could hehave been there, then, by appointment, without the father'sknowledge? Was this the common case of a clandestine assignation?Could the father have returned to the house unexpectedly, at aninopportune moment, and found his daughter there, closeted with astranger--perhaps with a man who had already, for sufficientgrounds, been forbidden the premises? Such things might be, in thisworld that we live in: he would be a bold man who would deny themcategorically. Could an altercation have arisen on the father'sreturn, and the fatal shot have been fired in the ensuing scuffle?And could the young lady then have feigned this curious relapse intothat Second State we had all heard so much about, for no otherreason than to avoid giving evidence at a trial for murder againsther guilty lover?

These were suggestions that deserved the closest consideration ofthe Authorities charged with the repression of crime. Was it nothigh time that the inquest on Mr. Callingham's body should beformally reopened, and that the young lady, now restored (as wegathered) to her own seven senses, should be closely interrogated bytrained legal cross-examiners?

I laid down the paper with a burning face. I learned now, for thefirst time, how closely my case had been watched, how eagerly myevery act and word had been canvassed. It was hateful to think of myphotograph having been exposed in every London shop-window, and ofanonymous slanderers being permitted to indite such scandal as thisabout an innocent woman. But, at any rate, it had the effect ofsealing my fate. If I meant even before to probe this mystery to thebottom, I felt now no other course was possibly open to me. For thesake of my own credit, for the sake of my own good fame, I must findout and punish my father's murderer. 

CHAPTER VI. 

RELIVING MY LIFE

Often, as you walk down a street, a man or woman passes you by. Youlook up at them and say to yourself, "I seem to know that face"; butyou can put no name to it, attach to it no definite idea, noassociations of any sort. That was just how Woodbury struck me whenI first came back to it. The houses, the streets, the people, werein a way familiar; yet I could no more have found my way alone fromthe station to The Grange than I could find my way alone from hereto Kamschatka. 

So I drove up first in search of lodgings. At the station evenseveral people had bowed or shaken hands with me respectfully as Idescended from the train. They came up as if they thought I mustrecognise them at once: there was recognition in their eyes; butwhen they met my blank stare, they seemed to remember all about it, and merely murmured in strange tones:

"Good-morning, miss! So you're here: glad to see you've come backagain at last to Woodbury. "

This reception dazzled me. It was so strange, so uncanny. I was gladto get away in a fly by myself, and to be driven to lodgings in theclean little High Street. For to me, it wasn't really "coming back"at all: it was coming to a strange town, where everyone knew me, and_I_ knew nobody. 

"You'd like to go to Jane's, of course, " the driver said to me witha friendly nod as he reached the High Street: and not liking toconfess my forgetfulness of Jane, I responded with warmth thatJane's would, no doubt, exactly suit me. 

We drew up at the door of a neat little house. The driver rang thebell. 

"Miss Una's here, " he said, confidentially; "and she's looking forlodgings. "

It was inexpressibly strange and weird to me, this one-sidedrecognition, this unfamiliar familiarity: it gave me a queer thrillof the supernatural that I can hardly express to you. But I didn'tknow what to do, when a kindly-faced, middle-aged Englishupper-class servant rushed out at me, open-armed, and hugging mehard to her breast, exclaimed with many loud kisses:

"Miss Una, Miss Una! So it's YOU, dear; so it is! Then you've comeback at last to us!"

I could hardly imagine what to say or do. The utmost I could assertwith truth was, Jane's face wasn't exactly and entirely in all waysunfamiliar to me. Yet I could see Jane herself was so unfeignedlydelighted to see me again, that I hadn't the heart to confess I'dforgotten her very existence. So I took her two hands in mine--since friendliness begets friendliness--and holding her off a littleway, for fear the kisses should be repeated, I said to her verygravely:

"You see, Jane, since those days I've had a terrible shock, and youcan hardly expect me to remember anything. It's all like a dream tome. You must forgive me if I don't recall it just at once as I oughtto do. "

"Oh! yes, miss, " Jane answered, holding my hands in her delight andweeping volubly. "We've read about all that, of course, in theLondon newspapers. But there, I'm glad anyhow you remembered to comeand look for my lodgings. I think I should just have sat down andcried if they told me Miss Una'd come back to Woodbury, and never somuch as asked to see me. "

I don't think I ever felt so like a hypocrite in my life before. ButI realised at least that even if Jane's lodgings were discomfortembodied, I must take them and stop in them, while I remained there, now. Nothing else was possible. I COULDN'T go elsewhere. 

Fortunately, however, the rooms turned out to be as neat as a newpin, and as admirably kept as any woman in England could keep them. I gathered from the very first, of course, that Jane had been one ofthe servants at The Grange in the days of my First State; and whileI drank my cup of tea, Jane herself came in and talked volubly tome, disclosing to me, parenthetically, the further fact that she wasthe parlour-maid at the time of my father's murder. That gave me aclue to her identity. Then she was the witness Greenfield who gaveevidence at the inquest! I made a mental note of that, anddetermined to look up what she'd said to the coroner, in the book ofextracts the Inspector gave me, as soon as I got alone in my bedroomthat evening. 

After dinner, however, Jane came in again, with the freedom of anold servant, and talked to me much about the Woodbury Mystery. Gradually, as time went on that night, though I remembered nothingdefinite of myself about her, the sense of familiarity andfriendliness came home to me more vividly. The appropriate emotionseemed easier to rouse, I observed, than the intellectual memory. Iknew Jane and I had been on very good terms, some time, somewhere. Italked with her easily, for I had a consciousness of companionship. 

By-and-by, without revealing to her how little I could recollectabout her own personality, I confessed to Jane, by slow degrees, that the whole past was still gone utterly from my shattered memory. I told her I knew nothing except the Picture and the facts itcomprised; and to show her just how small that knowledge really was, I showed her (imprudently enough) the photograph the Inspector hadleft with me. 

Jane looked at it long and slowly, with tears in her eyes. Then shesaid at last, after a deep pause, in a very hushed voice:

"Why, how did you get this? It wasn't put in the papers. "

"No, " I answered quietly, "it wasn't put in the papers. For reasonsof their own, the police kept it unpublished. "

Jane gazed at the proof still closer. "They oughtn't to have donethat, " she said. 

"They ought to have sent it out everywhere broadcast--so thatanybody who knew the man could tell him by his back. "

That seemed to me such obvious good sense that I wondered to myselfthe police hadn't thought long since of it; but I supposed they hadsome good ground of their own for holding it all this time in theirown possession. 

Jane went on talking to me still for many minutes about the scene:

"Ah, yes; that was just how he lay, poor dear gentleman! And thebook on the chair, too! Well, did you ever in your life see anythingso like! And to think it was taken all by itself, as one might say, by magic. But there! your poor papa was a wonderful clever man. Suchthings as he used to invent! Such ideas and such machines! We weresorry for him, though we always thought, to be sure, he was dreadfulsevere with you, Miss Una. Such a gentleman to have his own way, too--so cold and reserved like. But one mustn't talk nothing but goodabout the dead, they say. And if he was a bit hard, he was more thanhard treated for it in the end, poor gentleman!"

It interested me to get these half side-lights on my father'scharacter. Knowing nothing of him, as I did, save the solitary factthat he was the white-haired gentleman I saw dead in my Picture, Inaturally wanted to learn as much as I could from this old servantof ours as to the family conditions. 

"Then you thought him harsh, in the servants'-hall?" I saidtentatively to Jane. "You thought him hard and unbending?"

"Well, there, Miss, " Jane ran on, putting a cushion to my backtenderly--it was strange to be the recipient of so much delicateattention from a perfect stranger, --"not exactly what you'd callharsh to us ourselves, you know: he was a good master enough, aslong as one did what was ordered, though he was a little bitfidgetty. But to you, we all thought he was always rather hard. People said so in Woodbury. And yet, in a way, I don't know how itwas, he always seemed more'n half afraid of you. He was carefulabout your health, and spoiled and petted you for that; yet he wasalways pulling you up, you know, and looking after what you did: andfor one thing, I remember, there's many a time you were sent to bedwhen you were a good big girl for nothing on earth else but becausehe heard you talking to us in the hall about Australia. "

"Talking to you about Australia!" I cried, pricking my ears. "Why, what harm was there in that? Why on earth didn't he want me to talkabout Australia?"

"Ah! what harm indeed?" Jane echoed blandly. "That's what we oftenused to say among ourselves downstairs. But Mr. Callingham, he wasalways that way, miss--so strict and particular. He said he'dforbidden you to say a word to anybody about that confoundedcountry; and you must do as you were told. He seemed to have agrudge against Australia, though it was there he made his money. Andhe always would have his own way, your father would. "

While she spoke, I looked hard at the white head in the photograph. Even as I did so, a thought occurred to me that had never occurredbefore. Both in my mental Picture, and in looking at the photographwhen I saw it first, the feeling that was uppermost in my mind wasnot sorrow, but horror. I didn't think with affection and regret anda deep sense of bereavement about my father's murder. The emotionalaccompaniment that had stamped itself upon the very fibre of mysoul, was not pain but awe. I think my main feeling was a feelingthat a foul crime had taken place in the house, not a feeling that Ihad lost a very dear and near relative. Rightly or wrongly, I drewfrom this the inference, which Jane's gossip confirmed, that I hadprobably rather feared than loved my father. 

It was strange to be reduced to such indirect evidence on such apoint as that; but it was all I could get, and I had to be contentwith it. 

Jane, leaning over my shoulder, looked hard at the photograph too. Icould see her eyes were fixed on the back of the man who was seendisappearing through the open window. He was dressed like agentleman, in knickerbockers and jacket, as far as one could judge;for the evening light rather blurred that part of the picture. Onehand was just waved, palm open, behind him. Jane regarded it hard. Then she gave an odd little start:

"Why, just look at that hand!" she cried, with a tremor of surprise. "Don't you see what it is? Don't you think it's a woman's?"

I gazed back at her incredulously. 

"Impossible, " I answered, shaking my head. "It belongs as clear asday to the man you see in the photograph. How on earth could hishand be a woman's then, I'd like to know? I can see the shirt-cuff. "

"Why, yes, " Jane answered, with simple common-sense: "it's DRESSEDlike a man, of course, and it's a man to look at; but the hand's awoman's, as true as I'm standing here. Why mightn't a woman dress ina man's suit on purpose? And perhaps it was just because they wereso sure it was a man as did it, that the police has gone wrong solong in trying to find the murderer. "

I looked hard at the hand myself. Then I shut my eyes, and thoughtof the corresponding object in my mental Picture. The result fairlystaggered me. The impression in each case was exactly the same. Itwas a soft and delicate hand, very white and womanlike. But was itreally a woman's? I couldn't feel quite sure in my own mind aboutthat; but the very warning Jane gave me seemed to me a most usefulone. It would be well, after all, to keep one's mind sedulously opento every possible explanation, and to take nothing for granted as tothe murderer's personality. 

CHAPTER VII. 

THE GRANGE AT WOODBURY

I stopped for three weeks in Jane's lodgings; and before the end ofthat time, Jane and I had got upon the most intimate footing. It waspartly her kindliness that endeared her to me, and her constantsense of continuity with the earlier days which I had quiteforgotten; but it was partly too, I felt sure, a vague revivalwithin my own breast of a familiarity that had long ago subsistedbetween us. I was coming to myself again, on one side of my nature. Day by day I grew more certain that while facts had passed away fromme, appropriate emotions remained vaguely present. Among theWoodbury people that I met, I recognised none to say that I knewthem; but I knew almost at first sight that I liked this one anddisliked that one. And in every case alike, when I talked the matterover afterwards with Jane, she confirmed my suspicion that in myFirst State I had liked or disliked just those persons respectively. My brain was upset, but my heart remained precisely the same asever. 

On my second morning I went up to The Grange with her. The house wasstill unlet. Since the day of the murder, nobody cared to live init. The garden and shrubbery had been sadly neglected: Jane took meout of the way as we walked up the path, to show me the place wherethe photographic apparatus had been found embedded in the grass, andwhere the murderer had cut his hands getting over the wall in hisfrantic agitation. The wall was pretty high and protected withbottle-glass. I guessed he must have been tall to scramble over it. That seemed to tell against Jane's crude idea that a woman mighthave done it. 

But when I said so to Jane, she met me at once with the crushingreply: "Perhaps it wasn't the same person that came back for thebox. " I saw she was right again. I had jumped at a conclusion. Incases like this, one must leave no hypothesis untried, jump at noconclusions of any sort. Clearly, that woman ought to have been madea detective. 

As I entered the house the weird sense of familiarity that pursuedme throughout rose to a very high pitch. I couldn't fairly say, indeed, that I remembered the different rooms. All I could say withcertainty was that I had seen them before. To this there were threeexceptions--the three that belonged to my Second State--the library, my bedroom, and the hall and staircase. The first was indeliblyprinted on my memory as a component part of the Picture, and I foundmy recollection of every object in the room almost startling in itscorrectness. Only, there was an alcove on one side that I'd quiteforgotten, and I saw why most clearly. I stood with my back to it asI looked at the Picture. The other two bits I remembered as the roomin which I had had my first great illness, and the passage downwhich I had been carried or helped when I was taken to Aunt Emma's. 

I had begun to recognise now that the emotional impression made uponme by people and things was the only sure guide I still possessed asto their connection or association with my past history. And therooms at The Grange had each in this way some distinctivecharacteristic. The library, of course, was the chief home of theHorror which had hung upon my spirit even during the days when Ihardly knew in any intelligible sense the cause of it. But thedrawing-room and dining-room both produced upon my mind a vagueconsciousness of constraint. I was dimly aware of being ill at easeand uncomfortable in them. My own bedroom, on the contrary, gave mea pleasant feeling of rest and freedom and security: while theservants'-hall and the kitchen seemed perfect paradises of liberty. 

"Ah! many's the time, miss, " Jane said with a sigh, looking over atthe empty grate, "you'd come down here to make cakes or puddings, and laugh and joke like a child with Mary an' me. I often used tosay to Emily--her as was cook here before Ellen Smith, --'Miss Una'snever so happy as when she's down here in the kitchen. ' And 'That'strue what you say, ' says Emily to me, many a time and often. "

That was exactly the impression left upon my own mind. I began toconclude, in a dim, formless way, that my father must have been asomewhat stern and unsympathetic man; that I had felt constrainedand uncomfortable in his presence upstairs, and had often beenpleased to get away from his eye to the comparative liberty and easeof my own room or of the maid-servants' quarters. 

At last, in the big attic that had once been the nursery, I pausedand looked at Jane. A queer sensation came over me. 

"Jane, " I said slowly, hardly liking to frame the words, "there'ssomething strange about this room. He wasn't cruel to me, was he?"

"Oh! no, miss, " Jane answered promptly. "He wasn't never what youmight call exactly cruel. He was a very good father, and lookedafter you well; but he was sort of stern and moody-like--would havehis own way, and didn't pay no attention to fads and fancies, hecalled 'em. When you were little, many's the time he sent you uphere for punishment--disobedience and such like. "

I took out the photograph and tried, as it were, to think of myfather as alive and with his eyes open. I couldn't remember theeyes. Jane told me they were blue; but I think what she said was thesort of impression the face produced upon me. A man not unjust orharsh in his dealings with myself, but very strong and masterful. Aman who would have his own way in spite of anybody. A father whoruled his daughter as a vessel of his making, to be done as he wouldwith, and be moulded to his fashion. 

Still, my visit to The Grange resulted in the end in casting verylittle light upon the problem before me. It pained and distressed megreatly, but it brought no new elements of the case into view: atbest, it only familiarised me with the scene of action of thetragedy. The presence of the alcove was the one fresh feature. Nothing recalled to me as yet in any way the murderer's features. Iracked my brain in vain; no fresh image came up in it. I couldrecollect nothing about the man or his antecedents. 

I almost began to doubt that I would ever succeed in reconstructingmy past, when even the sight of the home in which I had spent mychildish days suggested so few new thoughts or ideas to me. 

For a day or two after that I rested at Jane's, lest I shoulddisturb my brain too much. Then I called once more on the doctor whohad made the post mortem on my father, and given evidence at theinquest, to see if anything he could say might recall my lapsedmemory. 

The moment he came into the room--a man about fifty, close-shavenand kindly-looking--I recognised him at once, and held out my handto him frankly. He surveyed me from head to foot with a good medicalstare, and then wrung my hand in return with extraordinary warmthand effusion. I could see at once he retained a most pleasingrecollection of my First State, and was really glad to see me. 

"What, you remember me then, Una!" he cried, with quite fatherlydelight. "You haven't forgotten me, my dear, as you've forgotten allthe rest, haven't you?"

It was startling to be called by one's Christian name like that, andby a complete stranger, too; but I was getting quite accustomed nowto these little incongruities. 

"Oh, yes; I remember you perfectly, " I answered, half-grieved todistress him, "though I shouldn't have known your name, and didn'texpect to see you. You're the doctor who attended me in my firstgreat illness--the illness with which my present life began--justafter the murder. "

He drew back, a little crestfallen. 

"Then that's all you recollect, is it?" he asked. "You don'tremember me before, dear? Not Dr. Marten, who used to take you onhis knee when you were a tiny little girl, and bring you lollipopsfrom town, to the great detriment of your digestion, and get intorows with your poor father for indulging you and spoiling you? Youmust surely remember me?"

I shook my head slowly. I was sorry to disappoint him; but it wasnecessary before all things to get at the bare truth. 

"I'm afraid not, " I answered. "Do please forgive me! You must haveread in the papers, like everybody else, of the very great changethat has so long come over me. Bear in mind, I can't rememberanything at all that occurred before the murder. That first illnessis to me the earliest recollection of childhood. "

He gazed across at me compassionately. 

"My poor child, " he said in a low voice, like a very affectionatefriend, "it's much better so. You have been mercifully spared agreat deal of pain. Una, when I first saw you at The Grange afteryour father's death, I thanked heaven you had been so seized. Ithanked heaven the world had become suddenly a blank to you. Iprayed hard you might never recover your senses again, or at leastyour memory. And now that you're slowly returned to life once more, against all hope or fear, I'm heartily glad it's in this peculiarway. I'm heartily glad all the past's blotted out for you. You can'tunderstand that, my child? Ah, no, very likely not. But I think it'smuch best for you, all your first life should be wholly forgotten. "He paused for a second. Then he added slowly: "If you remembered itall, the sense of the tragedy would be far more acute and poignanteven than at present. "

"Perhaps so, " I said resolutely; "but not the sense of mystery. It'sTHAT that appals me so! I'd rather know the truth than be so wrappedup in the incomprehensible. "

He looked at me pityingly once more. 

"My poor child, " he said, in the same gentle and fatherly voice, "you don't wholly understand. It doesn't all come home to you. I cansee clearly, from what Inspector Wolferstan told me, after his visitto you the other day--"

I broke in, in surprise. 

"Inspector Wolferstan!" I cried. "Then he came down here to see you, did he?"

It was horrible to find how all my movements were discussed andchronicled. 

"Yes, he came down here to see me and talk things over, " Dr. Martenwent on, as calmly as if it were mere matter of course. "And I couldsee from what he said you were still spared much. For instance, youremember it all only as an event that happened to an old man with along white beard. You don't fully realise, except intellectually, that it was your own father. You're saved, as a daughter, the miseryand horror of thinking and feeling it was your father who lay deadthere. "

"That's quite true, " I answered. "I admit that I can't feel it allas deeply as I ought. But none the less, I've come down here to makea violent effort. Let it cost what it may, I must get at the truth. I wanted to see whether the sight of The Grange and of Woodbury mayhelp me to recall the lost scenes in my memory. "

To my immense surprise, Dr. Marten rose from his seat, and standingup before me in a perfect agony of what seemed like terror, halfmixed with affection, exclaimed in a very earnest and resolutevoice:

"Oh, Una, my child, whatever you do--I beg of you--I imploreyou--don't try to recall the past at all! Don't attempt it! Don'tdream of it!"

"Why not?" I cried, astonished. "Surely it's my duty to try and findout my father's murderer!"

Instead of answering me, he looked about him for half a minute insuspense, as if doubtful what next to do or to say. Then he walkedacross with great deliberation to the door of the room, and lockedand double-locked it with furtive alarm, as I interpreted hisaction. 

So terrified did he seem, indeed, that for a moment the ideaoccurred to me in a very vague way--Was I talking with the murderer?Had the man who himself committed the crime conducted the postmortem, and put Justice off the scent? And was I now practically atthe mercy of the criminal I was trying to track down? The thoughtfor a second or two made me feel terribly uncomfortable. But Iglanced at his back and at his hands, and reassured myself. Thatbroad, short man was not the slim figure of my Picture and of thephotograph. Those large red hands were not the originals of thesmall and delicate white palm just displayed at the back in boththose strange documents of the mysterious murder. 

The doctor came over again, and drew his chair close to mine. 

"Una, my child, " he said slowly, "I love you very much, as if youwere my own daughter. I always loved you and admired you, and wassorry--oh, so sorry!--for you. You've quite forgotten who I am; butI've not forgotten you. Take what I say as coming from an oldfriend, from one who loves you and has your interest at heart. Forheaven's sake, I implore you, my child, make no more inquiries. Tryto forget--not to remember. If you do recollect, you'll be sorry inthe end for it. "

"Why so?" I asked, amazed, yet somehow feeling in my heart I couldtrust him implicitly. "Why should the knowledge of the truecircumstances of the case make me more unhappy than I am atpresent?"

He gazed harder at me than ever. 

"Because, " he replied in slow tones, weighing each word as he spoke, "you may find that the murder was committed by some person orpersons you love or once loved very much indeed. You may find itwill rend your very heart-strings to see that person or thosepersons punished. You may find the circumstances were whollyotherwise than you imagine them to be. . . . Let sleeping dogs lie, mydear. Without your aid, nothing more can be done. Don't troubleyourself to put the blood-hounds on the track of some unhappycreature who might otherwise escape. Don't rake it all up afresh. Bury it--bury it--bury it!"

He spoke so earnestly that he filled me with vague alarm. 

"Dr. Marten, " I said solemnly, "answer me just one question. Do youknow who was the murderer?"

"No, no!" he exclaimed, starting once more. "Thank heaven, I can'ttell you that! I don't know. I know nothing. Nobody on earth knowsbut the two who were present on the night of the murder, I feelsure. And of those two, one's unknown, and the other has forgotten. "

"But you suspect who he is?" I put in, probing the secret curiously. 

He trembled visibly. 

"I suspect who he is, " he replied, after a moment's hesitation. "ButI have never communicated, and will never communicate, my suspicionsto anybody, not even to you. I will only say this: the person whom Isuspect is one with whom you may now have forgotten all your pastrelations, but whom you would be sorry to punish if you recoveredyour memory. I formed a strong opinion at the time who that personwas. I formed it from the nature and disposition of the wound, andthe arrangement of the objects in the room when I was called in tosee your father's body. "

"And you never said so at the inquest!" I cried, indignant. 

He looked at me hard again. Then he spoke in a very slow and earnestvoice:

"For your sake, Una, and for the sake of your affections, I held mypeace, " he said. "My dear, the suspicion was but a very slender one:I had nothing to go upon. And why should I have tried to destroyyour happiness?"

That horrible article in the penny Society paper came back to mymind once more with hideous suggestiveness. I turned to him almostfiercely. 

"So far as you know, Dr. Marten, " I asked, "was I ever in love? HadI ever an admirer? Was I ever engaged to anyone?"

He shrugged his shoulders and smiled a sort of smile of relief. 

"How should I know?" he answered. "Admirers?--yes, dozens of them;I was one myself. Lovers?--who can say? But I advise you not topush the inquiry further. "

I questioned him some minutes longer, but could get nothing morefrom him. Then I rose to go. 

"Dr. Marten, " I said firmly, "if I remember all, and if it wrings myheart to remember, I tell you I will give up that man to justice allthe same! I think I know myself well enough to know this much atleast, that I never, never could stoop either to love or to screen aman who could commit such a foul and dastardly crime as this one. "

He took my hand fervently, raised it with warmth to his lips andkissed it twice over. 

"My dear, " he said, with tears dropping down his gentle old cheeks, "this is a very great mystery--a terrible mystery. But I know youspeak the truth. I can see you mean it. Therefore, all the moreearnestly do I beg and beseech you, go away from Woodbury at once, and as long as you live think no more about it. "

CHAPTER VIII. 

A VISION OF DEAD YEARS

The interview with Dr. Marten left me very much disquieted. But itwasn't the only disquieting thing that occurred at Woodbury. BeforeI left the place I happened to go one day into Jane's own littlesitting-room. Jane was anxious I should see it--she wanted me toknow all her house, she said, for the sake of old times: and for thesake of those old times that I couldn't remember, but when I knewshe'd been kind to me, I went in and looked at it. 

There was nothing very peculiar about Jane's little sitting-room:just the ordinary English landlady's parlour. You know thetype:--square table in the middle; bright blue vases on themantelpiece; chromo-lithograph from the Illustrated London News onthe wall; rickety whatnot with glass-shaded wax-flowers in therecess by the window. But over in one corner I chanced to observe aframed photograph of early execution, which hung faded and dimthere. Perhaps it was because my father was such a scientificamateur; but photography, I found out in time, struck the key-noteof my history in every chapter. I didn't know why, but thisparticular picture attracted me strangely. It came from The Grange, Jane told me: she'd hunted it out in the attic over the frontbedroom after the house was shut up. It belonged to a lot of myfather's early attempts that were locked in a box there. "He'dalways been trying experiments and things, " she said, "withphotography, poor gentleman. "

Faded and dim as it was, the picture riveted my eyes at once by someunknown power of attraction. I gazed at it long and earnestly. Itrepresented a house of colonial aspect, square, wood-built, andverandah-girt, standing alone among strange trees whose very namesand aspects were then unfamiliar to me, but which I nowadays know tobe Australian eucalyptuses. On the steps of the verandah sat a ladyin deep mourning. A child played by her side, and a collie dog laycurled up still and sleepy in the foreground. The child, indeed, stirred no chord of any sort in my troubled brain; but my heart cameup into my mouth so at sight of the lady, that I said to myself allat once in my awe, "That must surely be my mother!"

The longer I looked at it, the more was I convinced I must havejudged aright. Not indeed that in any true sense I could say Iremembered her face or figure: I was so young when she died, according to everybody's account, that even if I'd remained in myFirst State I could hardly have retained any vivid recollection ofher. But both lady and house brought up in me once more to somevague degree that strange consciousness of familiarity I had noticedat The Grange: and what was odder still, the sense of wont seemedeven more marked in the Australian cottage than in the case of thehouse which all probability would have inclined one beforehand tothink I must have remembered better. If this was indeed my earliesthome, then I seemed to recollect it far more readily than my laterone. 

I turned trembling to Jane, hardly daring to frame the question thatrose first to my lips. 

"Is that--my mother?" I faltered out slowly. 

But there Jane couldn't help me. She'd never seen the lady, shesaid. 

"When first I come to The Grange, miss, you see, your mother'd beenburied a year; there was only you and Mr. Callingham in family. AndI never saw that photograph, neither, till I picked it out of thebox locked up in the attic. The little girl might be you, likeenough, when you look at it sideways; and yet again it mightn't. Butthe lady I don't know. I never saw your mother. "

So I was fain to content myself with pure conjecture. 

All day long, however, the new picture haunted me almost aspersistently as the old one. 

That night I went to sleep fast, and slept for some hours heavily. Iwoke with a start. I had been dreaming very hard. And my dream waspeculiarly clear and lifelike. Never since the first night of my newlife--the night of the murder--had I dreamed such a dream, or seendead objects so vividly. It came out in clear colours, like theterrible Picture that had haunted me so long. And it affected mestrangely. It was a scene, rather than a dream--a scene, as at thetheatre; but a scene in which I realised and recognised everything. 

I stood on the steps of a house--a white wooden house, with agreen-painted verandah--the very house I had seen that afternoon inthe faded photograph in Jane's little sitting-room. But I didn'tthink of it at first as the house in the old picture: I thought ofit as home--our own place--the cottage. The steps seemed to me veryhigh, as in childish recollection. A lady walked about on theverandah and called to me: a lady in a white gown, like the lady inthe photograph, only younger and prettier, and dressed much moredaintily. But I didn't think of her as that either: I called hermamma to myself: I looked up into her face, oh, ever so much aboveme: I must have been very small indeed when that picture firstoccurred to me. There was a gentleman, too, in a white linen coat, who pinched my mamma's ear, and talked softly and musically. But Ididn't think of him quite so: I knew he was my papa: I played abouthis knees, a little scampering child, and looked up in his face, andteased him and laughed at him. My papa looked down at me, and calledme a little kitten, and rolled me over on my back, and fondled meand laughed with me. There were trees growing all about, big treeswith long grey leaves: the same sort of trees as the ones in thephotograph. But I didn't remember that at first: in my dream, and inthe first few minutes of my waking thought, I knew them at once asthe big blue-gum-trees. 

I awoke in the midst of it: and the picture persisted. 

Then, with a sudden burst of intuition, the truth flashed upon meall at once. My dream was no mere dream, but a revelation in mysleep. It was my intellect working unconsciously and spontaneouslyin an automatic condition. For the very first time in my life, sincethe night of the murder, I had really REMEMBERED something thatoccurred before it. 

This was a scene of my First State. In all probability it was myearliest true childish recollection. 

I sat up in bed, appalled. I dared not call aloud or ring for Janeto come to me. But if I'd seen a ghost, it could hardly haveaffected me more profoundly than this ghost of my own dead life thusbrought suddenly back to me. Gazing away across some illimitablevista of dim years, I remembered this one scene as something thatonce occurred, long ago, to my very self, in my own experience. Thencame a vast gulf, an unbridged abyss: and after that, with avividness as of yesterday, the murder. 

I held my ears and crouched low, sitting up in my bed in the dark. But the dream seemed to go on still: it remained with me distinctly. 

The more I thought it over, the more certain it appeared as part ofmy own experience. Putting two and two together, I made sure in myown mind this was a genuine recollection of my life in Australia. Iwas born there, I knew: that I had learned from everybody. But Icould distinctly remember having LIVED there now. It came back to meas memory. The dream had reinstated it. 

And it was the sight of the photograph that had produced the dream. This was curious, very. A weird idea came across me. Had I begun, inall past efforts to remember, at the wrong end? Instead of trying torecollect the circumstances that immediately preceded the murder, ought I to have set out by trying to reinstate my First Life, chapter by chapter and verse by verse, from childhood upward? OughtI to start by recalling as far as possible my very earliestrecollections in my previous existence, and then gradually work upthrough all my subsequent history to the date of the murder?

The more I thought of it, the more convinced was I that that was theright procedure. 

It was certainly significant that this vague childish recollectionof something which might have happened when I was just about twoyears old should be the very first thing to recur to my my memory. Yet so appalled and alarmed was I by the weirdness of this suddenapparition, looming up, as it were, all by itself in the depths ofmy consciousness, that I hardly dared bring myself to think oftrying to recall any other scenes of that dead and past existence. The picture rose like an exhalation, hanging unrelated in mid-air, amere mental mirage: and it terrified me so much, that I shrankunutterably from the effort of calling up another of like sort tofollow it. 

CHAPTER IX. 

HATEFUL SUSPICIONS

The rest of that night I lay awake in my bed, the scene in theverandah by the big blue-gum-trees haunting me all the time, much asin earlier days the Picture of the murder had pursued and hauntedme. Early in the morning I rose up, and went down to Jane in herlittle parlour. I longed for society in my awe. I needed humanpresence. I couldn't bear to be left alone by myself with all thesepressing and encompassing mysteries. 

"Jane, " I said after a few minutes' careless talk--for I didn'tlike to tell her about my wonderful dream, --"where exactly did youfind the picture of that house hanging over in the corner there?"

"Lor' bless your heart, miss, " Jane answered, "there's a wholeboxful of them at The Grange. Nobody ever cared for them. They're upin the top attic. They were locked till your papa died, and thenthey were opened by order of the executors. Some of 'em's faded evenworse than that one, and none of 'em's very good; but I picked thisone out because it was better worth framing for my room than most of'em. The executors took no notice when they found what they was. They opened the box to see if it was dockyments. "

"Well, Jane, " I said, "I shall go up and bring them every one awaywith me. It's possible they may help me to recollect things a bit. "I drew my hand across my forehead. "It all seems so hazy, " I wenton. "Yet when I see things again, I sometimes feel as if I almostrecognised them. "

So that very morning we went up together (I wouldn't go alone), andgot the rest of the photographs--very faded positives fromold-fashioned plates, most of them representing persons and places Ihad never seen; and a few of them apparently not taken in England. 

I didn't look them all over at once just then. I thought it best notto do so. I would give my memory every possible chance. Take a fewat a time, and see what effect they produced on me. Perhaps--thoughI shrank from the bare idea with horror--they might rouse in mysleep such another stray effort of spontaneous reconstruction. Yetthe last one had cost me much nervous wear and tear--much mentalagony. 

A few days after, I went away from Woodbury. I had learned for themoment, I thought, all that Woodbury could teach me: and I longed toget free again for a while from this pervading atmosphere ofmystery. At Aunt Emma's, at least, all was plain and aboveboard. Iwould go back to Barton-on-the-Sea, and rest there for a while, among the heathery hills, before proceeding any further on my voyageof discovery. 

But I took back Jane with me. I was fond of Jane now. In those twoshort weeks I had learned to cling to her. Though I remembered her, strictly speaking, no more than at first, yet the affection I musthave borne her in my First State seemed to revive in me very easily, like all other emotions. I was as much at home with Jane, indeed, asif I had known her for years. And this wasn't strange; for I HADknown her for years, in point of fact; and and though I'd forgottonmost of those years, the sense of familiarity they had inspiredstill lived on with me unconsciously. I know now that memory resideschiefly in the brain, while the emotions are a wider endowment ofthe nervous system in general; so that while a great shock mayobliterate whole tracts in the memory, no power on earth can everalter altogether the sentiments and feelings. 

As for Jane, she was only too glad to come with me. There were nolodgers at present, she said; and none expected. Her sisterElizabeth would take care of the rooms, and if any stranger came, why, Lizzie'd telegraph down at once for her. So I wrote to AuntEmma to expect us both next day. Aunt Emma's, I knew, was a homewhere I or mine were always welcome. 

Jane had never seen Aunt Emma. There had been feud between thefamilies while my father lived, so she didn't visit The Grange aftermy mother's death. Aunt Emma had often explained to me in part howall that happened. It was the one point in our family history onwhich she'd ever been explicit: for she had a grievance there; andwhat woman on earth can ever suppress her grievances? It's ourfeminine way to air them before the world, as it's a man's to burythem deep in his own breast and brood over them. 

My mother, she told me, had been a widow when my father marriedher--a rich young widow. She had gone away, a mere girl, toAustralia with her first husband, a clergyman, who was lost at seatwo or three years after, on the voyage home to England without her. She had one little girl by her first husband, but the child diedquite young: and then she married my father, who met her first inAustralia while she waited for news of the clergyman's safety. Herfamily always disapproved of the second marriage. My father had nomoney, it seemed; and mamma was well off, having means of her own tostart with, like Aunt Emma, and having inherited also her firsthusband's property, which was very considerable. He had left it tohis little girl, and after her to his wife; so that first my father, and then I myself, came in, in the end, to both the little estates, though my mother's had been settled on the children of the firstmarriage. Aunt Emma always thought my father had married for money:and she said he had been hard and unkind to mamma: not indeed cruel;he wasn't a cruel man; but severe and wilful. He made her do exactlyas he wished about everything, in a masterful sort of way, that nowoman could stand against. He crushed her spirit entirely, Aunt Emmatold me; she had no will of her own, poor thing: his individualitywas so strong, that it overrode my mother's weak nature rough-shod. 

Not that he was rough. He never scolded her; he never illtreatedher; but he said to her plainly, "You are to do so and so;" and sheobeyed like a child. She never dared to question him. 

So Aunt Emma had always said my mother was badly used, especially inmoney matters--the money being all, when one came to think of it, her own or her first husband's;--and as a consequence, auntie wasnever invited to The Grange during my father's lifetime. 

When we reached Barton-on-the-Sea, Jane and I, on our way fromWoodbury, Aunt Emma was waiting at the station to meet us. To mygreat disappointment, I could see at first sight she didn't care forJane: and I could also see at first sight Jane didn't care for her. This was a serious blow to me, for I leaned upon those two more thanI leaned upon anyone; and I had far too few friends in the world ofmy own, to afford to do without any one of them. 

In the evening, however, when I went up to my own room to bed, Janecame up to help me as she always did at Woodbury. I began at once totax her with not liking Aunt Emma. With a little hesitation, Janeadmitted that at first sight she hadn't felt by any means disposedto care for her. I pressed her hard as to why. Jane held off andprevaricated. That roused my curiosity:--you see, I'm a woman. Iinsisted upon knowing. 

"Oh, miss, I can't tell you!" Jane cried, growing red in the face, "I can't bear to say it out. You oughtn't to ask. It'll hurt you toknow I even thought such a thing of her!"

"You MUST tell me, Jane, " I exclaimed, with a cold shudder ofterror, half guessing what she meant. "Don't keep me in suspense. Let me know what it is. I'm accustomed to shocks now. I know I canstand them. "

Jane answered nothing directly. She only held out her coarse redhand and asked me, with a face growing pale as she spoke:

"Where's that picture of the murder?"

I produced it from my box, trembling inwardly all over. 

Jane darted one finger demonstratively at a point in the photograph. 

"Whose hand is THAT?" she asked with a strange earnestness, puttingher nail on the murderer's. 

The words escaped me in a cry of horror almost before I was aware ofthem:

"Aunt Emma's!" I said, gasping. "I NEVER noticed it before. "

Then I drew back and stared at it in speechless awe andconsternation. 

It was quite, quite true. No use in denying it. The figure thatescaped through the window was dressed in man's clothes, to be sure, and as far as one could judge from the foreshortening and thepeculiar stoop, had a man's form and stature. But the hand was awoman's--soft, and white, and delicate: nay more, the hand, as Isaid in my haste, was line for line Aunt Emma's. 

In a moment a terrible sinking came over me from head to foot. Itrembled like an aspen-leaf. Could this, then, be the meaning of Dr. Marten's warning, that I should let sleeping dogs lie, lest I shouldbe compelled to punish someone whom I loved most dearly? Had Fatebeen so cruel to me, that I had learned to cling most in my SecondState to the very criminal whose act had blotted out my First? Had Igrown to treat like a mother my father's murderer?

Aunt Emma's hand! Aunt Emma's hand! That was Aunt Emma's hand, everytouch and every line of it. But no! where were the marks, thosewell-known marks on the palm? I took up the big magnifying-glasswith which I had often scanned that photograph close before. Not asign or a trace of them. I shut my eyes, and called up again themental Picture of the murder. I looked hard at the phantom-hand init, that floated like a vision, all distinct before my mind's eye. It was flat and smooth and white. Not a scar--not a sign on it. Iturned round to Jane, that too natural detective. 

"No, no!" I cried hastily, with a quick tone of triumph. "AuntEmma's hand is marked on the palm with great gashes and cuts. Thisone's smooth as smooth can be. And so's the one I can see in thePicture within me!"

Jane drew back with a startled air, and opened her mouth, all agog, to let in a deep breath. 

"The wall!" she said slowly. "The bottle-glass, don't you know! Theblood on the top! Whoever did it, climbed over and tore his hands. Or HER hands, if it was a woman! That would account for the gashes. "

This was more than I could endure. The coincidence was too crushing. I bent down my head on my arms and cried silently, bitterly. I hatedJane in my heart for even suggesting it. Yet I couldn't deny tomyself for a moment the strength and suggestiveness of herhalf-spoken argument. 

Not that for a second I believed it true. I could never believe it. Aunt Emma, so gentle, so kindly, so sweet: incapable of hurting anyliving thing: the tenderest old lady that breathed upon earth: andmy own mother's sister, whom I loved as I never before loved anyone!Aunt Emma the murderess! The bare idea was preposterous! I couldn'tentertain it. My whole nature revolted from it. 

And indeed, how very slight, after all, was the mere scrap ofevidence on which Jane ventured to suggest so terrible a charge! Aman--in man's clothes--fairly tall and slim, and apparently dark-haired, but stooping so much that he looked almost hump-backed: howdifferent from Aunt Emma, with her womanly figure, and her uprightgait, and her sweet old white head! Why, it was clearly ridiculous. 

And yet, the fact remained that as Jane pointed to the Picture andasked, "Whose hand is that?" the answer came up all spontaneously tomy lips, without hesitation, "Aunt Emma's!"

I sat there long in my misery, thinking it over to myself. I didn'tknow what to do. I couldn't go and confide to Aunt Emma's ear thisnew and horrible doubt, --which was no doubt after all, for I KNEW itwas impossible. I hated Jane for suggesting it; I hated her fortelling me. Yet I couldn't be left alone. I was far too terrified. 

"Oh, Jane;" I cried, looking up to her, and yet despising myself forsaying it, "you must stop here to-night and sleep with me. If I'mleft by myself in the room alone, I know I shall go mad--I can feelit--I'm sure of it!"

Jane stopped with me and soothed me. She was certainly very kind. Yet I felt in a dim underhand sort of way it was treason to AuntEmma to receive her caresses at all after what she had said to me. Though to be sure, it was I, not she, who spoke those hateful words. It was I myself who had said the hand was Aunt Emma's. 

As I lay awake and thought, the idea flashed across me suddenly, could Jane have any grudge of her own against Aunt Emma? Was this adeliberate plot? What did she mean by her warnings that I shouldkeep my mind open? Why had she said from the very first it was awoman's hand? Did she want to set me against my aunt? And was Dr. Marten in league with her? In my tortured frame of mind, I felt allalone in the world. I covered my head and sobbed in my misery. Ididn't know who were my friends and who were against me. 

At last, after long watching, I dozed off into an uneasy sleep. Janehad already been snoring long beside me. I woke up again with astart. I was cold and shuddering. I had dreamed once more the sameAustralian dream. My mamma as before stood gentle beside me. Shestooped down and smoothed my hair: I could see her face and her formdistinctly. And I noticed now she was like her sister, Aunt Emma, only younger and prettier, and ever so much slighter. And her hand, too, was soft and white like auntie's--very gentle and delicate. 

It was just there that I woke up--with the hand before my eyes. Oh, how vividly I noted it! Aunt Emma's hand, only younger, andunscarred on the palm. The family hand, no doubt: the hand of theMoores. I remembered, now, that Aunt Emma had spoken more than onceof that family peculiarity. It ran through the house, she said. Butmy hand was quite different: not the Moore type at all: I supposed Imust have taken it, as was natural, from the Callinghams. 

And then, in my utter horror and loneliness, a still more awful andghastly thought presented itself to me. This was my mother's hand Isaw in the picture. Was it my mother, indeed, who wrought themurder? Was she living or dead? Had my father put upon her somegrievous wrong? Had he pretended to get her out of the way? Had heburied her alive, so to speak, in some prison or madhouse? Had shereturned in disguise from the asylum or the living grave to avengeherself and murder him? In my present frame of mind, no idea was toowild or too strange for me to entertain. If this strain continuedmuch longer, I should go mad myself with suspense and horror!

CHAPTER X. 

YET ANOTHER PHOTOGRAPH

Next morning my head ached. After all I'd suffered, I could hardlybear to recur to the one subject that now always occupied mythoughts. And yet, on the other hand, I couldn't succeed inbanishing it. To relieve my mind a little, I took out thephotographs I had brought from the box at The Grange, and began tosort them over according to probable date and subject. 

They were of different periods, some old, some newer. I put themtogether in series, as well as I could, by the nature of thesurroundings. The most recent of all were my father's early attemptsat instantaneous electric photography--the attempts which led up atlast to his automatic machine, the acmegraph, that produced allunconsciously the picture of the murder. Some of these comparativelyrecent proofs represented men running and horses trotting: but thebest of all, tied together with a bit of tape, clearly belonged to asingle set, and must have been taken at the same time at an athleticmeeting. There was one of a flat race, viewed from a little infront, with the limbs of the runners in seemingly ridiculousattitudes, so instantaneous and therefore so grotesquely rigid werethey. There was another of a high jump, seen from one side at thevery moment of clearing the pole, so that the figure poised solid inmid-air as motionless as a statue. And there was a third, equallysuccessful, of a man throwing the hammer, in which the hammer, inthe same way, seemed to hang suspended of itself like Mahomet'scoffin between earth and heaven. 

But the one that attracted my attention the most was a photograph ofan obstacle-race, in which the runners had to mount and climb over awagon placed obtrusively sideways across the course on purpose tobaffle them. This picture was taken from a few yards in the rear;and the athletes were seen in it in the most varied attitudes. Someof them were just climbing up one side of the wagon: others hadmounted to the top ledge of the body: and one, standing on thefurther edge, was in the very act of leaping down to the ground infront of him. He was bent double, to spring, with a stoop like ahunchback, and balanced himself with one hand held tightly behindhim. 

As my eye fell on that figure, a cold thrill ran through me. For amoment I only knew something important had happened. Next instant Irealised what the thrill portended. I could only see the man's back, to be sure, but I knew him in a second. I had no doubt as to who itwas. This was HIM--the murderer!

Yes, yes! There could be no mistaking that arched round back thathad haunted me so long in my waking dreams. I knew him at sight. Itwas the man I had seen on the night of the murder getting out of thewindow!

Perhaps I was overwrought. Perhaps my fancy ran away with me. But Ididn't doubt for a second. I rose from my seat, and in a tremulousvoice called Jane into the room. Without one word I laid bothpictures down before her together. Jane glanced first at the one, then turned quickly to the other. A sharp little cry broke from herlips all unbidden. She saw it as fast and as instinctively as I haddone. 

"That's him!" she exclaimed, aghast, and as pale as a sheet. "That'shim, right enough, Miss Una. That's the very same back! That's thevery same hand! That's the man! That's the murderer!"

And indeed, this unanimity was sufficiently startling. For nothingcould have been more different than the dress in the two cases. Inthe murder scene, the man seemed to wear a tweed suit andknickerbockers, --he was indistinct, as I said before, against theblurred light of the window: while in the athletic scene, he worejust a thin jersey and running-drawers, cut short at the knee, withhis arms and legs bare, and his muscles contracted. Yet for allthat, we both knew him for the same man at once. That stooping backwas unmistakable; that position of the hand was characteristic andunique. We were sure he was the same man. I trembled with agitation. I had a clue to the murderer!

Yet, strange to say, that wasn't the first thought that occurred tomy mind. In the relief of the moment, I looked up into Jane's eyes, and exclaimed with a sigh of profound relief:

"Then you see how mistaken you were about the hands and Aunt Emma!"

Jane looked close at the hand in the photograph once more. 

"Well, it's curious, " she said, slowly. "That's a man, sure enough:but he'd ought to be a Moore. The palm's your aunt's as clear asever you could paint it!"

I glanced over her shoulder. She was perfectly right. It was a manbeyond all doubt, the figure on the wagon. Yet the hand was AuntEmma's, every line and every stroke of it; except, of course, thescars. Those, I saw at a glance, were wholly wanting. 

And now I had really a clue to the murderer. 

Yet how slight a clue! Just a photograph of men's backs. What men?When and where? It was an athletic meeting. Of what club or society?That was the next question now I had to answer. Instinctively I madeup my mind to answer it myself, without giving any notice to thepolice of my discovery. 

Perhaps I should never have been able to answer it at all but forone of the photographs which, as I thought, though lying loose byitself, formed part of the same series. It represented the end of ahundred-yard race, with the winners coming in at the tape by apavilion with a flag-staff. On the staff a big flag was flyingloosely in the wind. The folds hid half of the words on its centrefrom sight. But this much at least I could read:

"ER. . . OM. . OY. . . LETI. . . UB. "

I gazed at them long and earnestly. After a minute or two ofthought, I made out the last two words. The inscription must surelybe Something-or-other Athletic Club. 

But what was "Er. . . Om. . Oy. . . "? That question staggered me. Gazingharder at it than ever, I could come to no conclusion. It was thename of a place, no doubt: but what place, I knew not. 

"Er"? No, "Ber": just a suspicion of a B came round the corner of afold. If B was the first letter, I might possibly identify it. 

I took the photograph down to Aunt Emma, without telling her what Imeant. She couldn't bear to think I was ever engaged in thinking ofmy First State at all. 

"Can you read the inscription on that flag, auntie?" I asked. "It'san old photograph I picked up in the attic at The Grange, and I'dlike to know, if I could, at what place it was taken. "

Aunt Emma gazed at it long and earnestly. Her colour never changed. Then she shook her head quietly. 

"I don't know the place, " she said; "and I don't know the name. Ican't quite make it out. That's E, and R, and O. You see, theletters in between might be almost anything. "

I wasn't going to be put off, however, with the port thus in sight. One fact was almost certain. Wherever that pavilion might be, themurderer was there on the day unknown when those photo-graphs weretaken. And whatever that day might be, my father and the murdererwere there together. That brought the two into connection, andbrought me one step nearer a solution than ever the police had been;for hitherto no one had even pretended to have the slightest clue tothe personality of the man who jumped out of the window. 

I went into the library and took down the big atlas. Opening the mapof England and Wales, I began a hopeless search, county by county, from Northumberland downward, for any town or village that would fitthese mysterious letters. It was a wild and foolish idea. In thefirst place not a quarter of the villages were marked in the map;and in the second place, my brain soon got muddled and dazed withtrying to fit in the names with the letters on the flag. Two hourshad passed away, and I'd only got as far down as Lancashire andDurham. And, most probably even so, I would never come upon it. 

Then suddenly, a bright idea broke on my brain at once. The Index!The Index! Presumably, as no fold seemed to obscure the first words, the name began with what looked like a B. That was always something. 

A man would have thought of that at once, of course: but then, Ihave the misfortune to be only a woman. 

I turned to the Index in haste, and looked down it with hurriedeyes. Almost sooner than I could have hoped, the riddle unreaditself. "Ber-, Berb-, Berc-, Berd-, " I read out: "Berkshire: Berham:Berhampore: that won't do: Berlin: Berling: Bernina: Berry--what'sthat? Oh, great heavens!"--my brain reeled--"Berry Pomeroy!"

It was as clear as day. How could I have missed it before? There itseemed to stand out almost legible on the flagstaff. I read it nowwith ease: "Berry Pomeroy Athletic Club. "

I looked up the map once more, following the lines with my fingers, till I found the very place where the name was printed. A village inDevonshire, not far from Torquay. Yes! That's it; Berry Pomeroy. Themurderer was there on the day of that athletic meeting!

My heart came up into my mouth with mingled horror and triumph. Ifelt like a bloodhound who gets on the trail of his man. I wouldtrack him down now, no doubt--my father's murderer!

I had no resentment against him, no desire for vengeance. But I hada burning wish to free myself from this environing mystery. 

I wouldn't tell the police or the inspector, however, what clue Ihad obtained. I'd find it all out for myself without anyone's help. I remembered what Dr. Marten had said, and determined to be wise. I'd work on my own lines till all was found out: and then, be it whoit might, I sternly resolved I'd let justice be done on him. 

So I said nothing even to Jane about the discovery I'd just made. Isaid nothing to anybody till we sat down at dinner. Then, in thecourse of conversation, I got on the subject of Devonshire. 

"Auntie, " I ventured to ask at last, in a very casual way, "did Iever, so far as you know, go anywhere near a place called BerryPomeroy?"

Aunt Emma gave a start. 

"Oh, darling, why do you ask?" she cried. 

"You don't mean to say you remember that, do you? What do you wantto know for, Una? You can't possibly recollect your Torquay visit, surely!"

I trembled all over. Then I was on the right track!

"Was I ever at Torquay?" I asked once more, as firmly as I could. "And when I was there, did I go over one day to Berry Pomeroy?"

Aunt Emma grew all at once as white as death. 

"This is wonderful!" she cried in an agitated voice. "This iswonderful--wonderful! If you can remember that, my child, you canremember anything. "

"I DON'T remember it auntie, " I answered, not liking to deceive her. "To tell you the truth, I simply guessed at it. But when and why wasI at Torquay? Please tell me. And did I go to Berry Pomeroy?" For Istuck to my point, and meant to get it out of her. 

Aunt Emma gazed at me fixedly. 

"You went to Torquay, dear, " she said in a very slow voice, "in thespring of the same year your poor father was killed: that's morethan four years ago. The Willie Moores live at Torquay, and severalmore of your cousins. You went to stop with Willie's wife, and youstayed five weeks. I don't know whether you ever went over to BerryPomeroy. You may have, and you mayn't: it's within an easy drivingdistance. Minnie Moore has often written to ask me whether you couldgo there again; Minnie was always fond of you, and thinks you'dremember her: but I've been afraid to allow you, for fear it shouldrecall sad scenes. She's about your own age, Minnie is; and she's adaughter of Willie Moore, who's my own first cousin, and of courseyour dear mother's. "

I never hesitated a moment. I was strung up too tightly by thattime. 

"Auntie dear, " I said quietly, "I go to-morrow to Torquay. I mustknow all now. I must hunt up these people. "

Auntie knew from my tone it was no use trying to stand in my way anylonger. 

"Very well, dear, " she said resignedly. "I don't believe it's goodfor you: but you must do as you like. You have your father's will, Una. You were always headstrong. "

CHAPTER XI. 

THE VISION RECURS

I hated asking auntie questions, they seemed to worry and distressher so; but that evening, in view of my projected visit to Torquay, I was obliged to cross-examine her rather closely about many things. I wanted to know about my Torquay relations, and as far as possibleabout my mother's family. In the end I learned that the WillieMoores were cousins of ours on my mother's side who had neverquarrelled with my father, like Aunt Emma, and through whom aloneaccordingly, in the days of my First State, Aunt Emma was able tolearn anything about me. They had a house at Torquay, andconnections all around; for the Moores were Devonshire people. AuntEmma was very anxious, if I went down there at all, I should stopwith Mrs. Moore: for Minnie would be so grieved, she said, if I wentto an hotel or took private lodgings. But I wouldn't hear of thatmyself. I knew nothing of the Moores--in my present condition--and Ididn't like to trust myself in the hands of those who to me wereperfect strangers. So I decided on going to the Imperial Hotel, andcalling on the Moores quietly to pursue my investigation. 

Another question I asked in the course of the evening. I hadwondered about it often, and now, in these last straits, curiosityovercame me. 

"Aunt Emma, " I said unexpectedly after a pause, without one word ofintroduction, "how ever did you get those scars on your hand? You'venever told me. "

In a moment, Aunt Emma blushed suddenly crimson like a girl ofeighteen. 

"Una, " she answered very gravely, in a low strange tone, "oh, don'task me about that, dear. Don't ask me about that. You could neverunderstand it. . . . I got them. . . In climbing over a high stonewall. . . A high stone wall, with bits of glass stuck on top of it. "

In spite of her prohibition, I couldn't help asking one virtualquestion more. I gave a start of horror:

"Not the wall at The Grange!" I cried. "Oh, Aunt Emma, howwonderful!"

She gazed at me, astonished. 

"Yes, the wall at The Grange, " she said simply. "But I don't knowhow you guessed it. . . . Oh, Una, don't talk to me any more aboutthese things, I implore you. You can't think how they grieve me. They distress me unspeakably. "

Much as I longed to know, I couldn't ask her again after that. Shewas trembling like an aspen-leaf. For some minutes we sat andlooked at the fireplace in silence. 

Then curiosity overcame me again. 

"Only one question more, auntie, " I said. "When I came to you first, you were at home here at Barton. You didn't come to Woodbury tofetch me after the murder. You didn't attend the inquest. I've oftenwondered at that. Why didn't you bring me yourself? Why didn't youhurry to nurse me as soon as you heard they'd shot my father?"

Aunt Emma gazed at me again with a face like a sheet. 

"Darling, " she said, quivering, "I was ill. I was in bed. I wasobliged to stay away. I'd hurt myself badly a little before. . . . Oh, Una, leave off! If you go on like this, you'll drive me mad. Say nomore, I implore of you. "

I couldn't think what this meant; but as auntie wished it, I held mypeace, all inwardly trembling with suppressed excitement. 

That night, when I went up to bed, I lay awake long, thinking tomyself of the Australian scene. In the silence of the night it cameback to me vividly. Rain pattered on the roof, and helped me toremember it. I could see the blue-gum trees waving their longribbon-like leaves in the wind: I could see the cottage, theverandah, my mother, our dog: nay, even, I remembered now, with aburst of recollection, his name was Carlo. The effort was more trulya recollection than before: it was part of myself: I felt aware itwas really I myself, not another, who had seen all this, and livedand moved in it. 

Slowly I fell asleep, and passed from thinking to dreaming. My dreamwas but a prolongation of the thoughts I had been turning over in mywaking mind. I was still in Australia; still on the verandah of ourwooden house; and my mamma was there, and papa beside her. I knew itwas papa; for I held his hand and played with him. But he was somuch altered, so grave and severe; though he smiled at megood-humouredly. Mamma was sitting behind, with baby on her lap. Itseemed to me quite natural she should be there with baby. The scenewas so distinct--very vivid and clear. It persisted for manyminutes, perhaps even hours. It burnt itself into my brain. At last, it woke me up by its very intensity. 

As I woke, a great many thoughts crowded in upon me all at once. This time I knew instantly it was no mere dream, but a truerecollection. Yet what a strange recollection! how unexpeted! howincomprehensible! How much in it to settle! how much to investigateand hunt up and inquire about!

In the first place, though I was still in my dream a little girl, much time must have elapsed since the earlier vision; for my papalooked far older, and graver, and sterner. He had more hair abouthis face, too, a long brown beard and heavy moustache; and when Igazed hard at him mentally, I could recognise the likeness with thewhite-bearded man who lay dead on the floor: while in my formerrecollection, I could scarcely make out any resemblance of thefeatures. This showed that the second scene came long after thefirst: my father must by that time have begun to resemble his laterself. A weird feeling stole over me. Was I going to relive myprevious life, piecemeal? Was the past going to unroll itself inslow but regular panorama to my sleeping vision? Was my First Stateto become known like this in successive scenes to my Second?

But that wasn't all. There were strange questions to decide, too, about this new dream of dead days. What could be the meaning of thatmysterious baby? She seemed to be so vivid, so natural, so real; herpresence there was so much a pure matter of course to me, that Icouldn't for a moment separate her from the rest of the Picture. IREMEMBERED the baby, now; as I remembered my mother, and my father, and Australia. There was no room for doubt as to that. The baby wasan integral part of my real recollection. Floating across the dimocean of years, I was certain that night I had once lived in such ascene, with my mamma, and baby. 

Yet oh, what baby? I never had a brother or sister of my own, exceptthe half-sister that died--the clergyman's child, Mary Wharton. AndMary, from what I had learned from Aunt Emma and others, must havedied when I was only just five months old, immediately before weleft Australia. How, then, could I remember her, even in thisexalted mental state of trance or dream? And, above all, how could Iremember a far earlier scene, when my papa was younger, when hisface was smooth, and when there was no other baby?

This mystery only heightened the other mysteries which surrounded mylife. I was surfeited with them now. In very despair andlistlessness, I turned round on my side, and dozed dreamily offagain, unable to grapple with it. 

But still that scene haunted me. And still, even in sleep, I askedmyself over and over again, "How on earth can this be? What's themeaning of the baby?"

Perhaps it was a little sister that died young, whom I never hadheard of. And perhaps not. In a life such as mine, new surprises arealways possible. 

CHAPTER XII. 

THE MOORES OF TORQUAY

Strange to say, in spite of everything, my sleep refreshed me. Iwoke up in the morning strong and vigorous--thank goodness, I havephysically a magnificent constitution--and packed my box, withJane's help, for my Torquay expedition. 

I went up to London and down to Torquay alone, though Jane offeredto accompany me. I was learning to be self-reliant. It suited myplans better. Nobody could bear this burden for me but myself; andthe sooner I learnt to bear it my own way, the happier for me. 

At Torquay station, to my great surprise, a fresh-looking girl of myown age rushed up to me suddenly, and kissed me without one word ofwarning. She was a very pretty girl, pink-cheeked and hazel-eyed:and as she kissed me, she seized both my hands in hers, and criedout to me frankly:

"Why, there you are, Una dear! Cousin Emma telegraphed us what trainyou'd arrive by; so I've driven down to meet you. And now, you'recoming up with us this very minute in the pony-carriage. "

"You're Minnie Moore, I suppose?" I said, gazing at her admiringly. Her sweet, frank smile and apple-blossom cheek somehow inspired mewith confidence. 

She looked back at me quite distressed. Tears rose at once into hereyes with true Celtic suddenness. 

"Oh, Una, " she cried, deeply hurt and drawing back into her shell, "don't tell me you don't know me! Why, I'm Minnie! Minnie!"

My heart went out to her at once. I took her hand in mine again. 

"Minnie dear, " I said softly, quite remorseful for my mistake, "youmust remember what has happened to me, and not be angry. I'veforgotten everything, even my own past life. I've forgotten that Iever before set eyes upon you. But, my dear, there's one thing I'veNOT in a way forgotten; and that is, that I loved you and love youdearly. And I 'll give you a proof of it. When I started, I knewnone of you; and I told Aunt Emma I wouldn't go among strangers. Themoment I see you, I know you're no stranger, but a very dear cousin. When I've forgotten MYSELF, how can I remember YOU? But I'll go upwith you at once. And I'll countermand the room I ordered bytelegram at the Imperial. "

The tears stood fuller in Minnie's eyes than before. She clasped myhand hard. Her pretty lips trembled. 

"Una darling, " she said, "we always were friends, and we alwaysshall be. If you love me, that's all. You're a darling. I love you. "

I looked at her sweet face, and knew it was true. And oh, I was soglad to have a new friend--an old friend, already! For somehow, asalways, while the intellectual recollection had faded, the emotionsurvived. I felt as if I'd known Minnie Moore for years, though Inever remembered to have seen her in my life till that minute. 

Well, I remained at the Moores' for a week, and felt quite at homethere. They were all very nice, Cousin Willie, and Aunt Emily (shemade me call her aunt; she said I'd always done so), and Minnie, andall of them. They were really dear people; and blood, after all, isthicker than water. But I made no haste to push inquiries just atfirst. I preferred to feel my way. I wanted to find out what theyknew, if anything, about Berry Pomeroy. 

The first time I ventured to mention the subject to Minnie, she gavea very queer smile--a smile of maidenly badinage. 

"Well, you remember THAT, any way, " she said, in a teasing littleway, looking down at me and laughing. "I thought you'd rememberthat. I must say you enjoyed yourself wonderfully at Berry Pomeroy!"

"Remember what?" I cried, all eagerness; for I saw she attached somespecial importance to the recollection. And yet, it was terrible sheshould jest about the clue to my father's murderer!

Minnie looked arch. When she looked arch, she was charming. 

"Why, I never saw you prettier or more engaging in your life thanyou were that day, " she said evasively, as if trying to pique me. "And you flirted so much, too! And everybody admired you so. Everybody on the grounds. . . Especially one person!"

I looked up at her in surprise. I was in my own room, seated by thedressing-table, late at night, when we'd gone up to bed; and Minniewas beside me, standing up, with her bedroom candle in that prettywhite little hand of hers. 

"What do you mean?" I exclaimed eagerly. "Was it a dance--or apicnic?"

"Oh, you know very well, " Minnie went on teasingly, "though youpretend you forget. HE was there, don't you know. You must rememberHIM, if you've forgotten all the rest of your previous life. You sayyou remember the appropriate emotions. Well, he was an emotion: atleast, you thought so. It was an Athletic Club Meeting: and Dr. Ivorwas there. He went across on his bicycle. "

I gave a start of surprise. Minnie looked down at me halfmaliciously. 

"There, you see, " she said archly again, "at Dr. Ivor you changecolour. I told you you'd remember him!"

I grew pale with astonishment. 

"Minnie dear, " I said, holding her hands very tight in my own, "itwasn't that, I assure you. I've forgotten him, utterly. If ever Iknew a Dr. Ivor, if ever I flirted with him, as you seem to imply, he's gone clean out of my head. His name stirs no chord--recallsabsolutely nothing. But I want to know about that Athletic Meeting. Was my poor father there that day? And did he take a set ofphotographs?"

Minnie clapped her hands triumphantly. 

"I KNEW you remembered!" she cried. "Of course, Cousin Vivian wasthere. We drove over in a break. You MUST remember that. And he tooka whole lot of instantaneous photographs. "

My hand trembled violently in my cousin's. I felt I was now on thevery eve of a great discovery. 

"Minnie, " I said, tentatively, "do you think your papa would driveus over some day and--and show us the place again?"

"Of course he would, dear, " Minnie answered, with a gentle pressureof my hand. "He'd be only too delighted. Whatever you choose. Youknow you were always such a favourite of daddy's. "

I knew nothing of the sort; but I was glad to learn it. I drewMinnie out a little more about the Athletics and my visit to BerryPomeroy. She wouldn't tell me much: she was too illusive andindefinite: she never could get the notion out of her head, somehow, that I remembered all about it, and was only pretending toforgetfulness. But I gathered from what she said, that Dr. Ivor andI must have flirted a great deal; or, at least, that he must havepaid me a good lot of attention. My father didn't like it, Minniesaid; he thought Dr. Ivor wasn't well enough off to marry me. He wasa distant cousin of ours, of course--everything was always "ofcourse" with that dear bright Minnie--what, didn't I know that? Oh, yes, his mother was one of the Moores of Barnstaple, cousin Edward'speople. His name was Courtenay Moore Ivor, you know--though I knewnothing of the sort. And he was awfully clever. And, oh, sohandsome!

"Is he at Berry Pomeroy still?" I asked, trembling, thinking thiswould be a good person to get information from about the people atthe Athletic Sports. 

"Oh dear, no, " Minnie answered, looking hard at me, curiously. "Hewas never at Berry Pomeroy. He had a practice at Babbicombe. He's inCanada now, you know. He went over six months after Cousin Vivian'sdeath. I think, dear, "--she hesitated, --"he never QUITE got overyour entirely forgetting him, even if you forgot your whole pasthistory. "

This was a curious romance to me, that Minnie thus sprang on me--aromance of my own past life of which I myself knew nothing. 

We sat late talking, and I could see Minnie was very full indeed ofDr. Ivor. Over and over again she recurred to his name, and alwaysas though she thought it might rouse some latent chord in my memory. But nothing came of it. If ever I had cared for Dr. Ivor at all, that feeling had passed away utterly with the rest of myexperiences. 

When Minnie rose to go, I took her hand once more in mine. As I didso, I started. Something about it seemed strangely familiar. Ilooked at it close with a keen glance. Why, this was curious! It wasAunt Emma's hand: it was my mother's hand: it was the hand in mymental Picture: it was the hand of the murderer!

"It's just like auntie's, " I said with an effort, seeing Minnienoticed my start. 

She looked at it and laughed. 

"The Moore hand, " she said gaily. "We all have it, except you. It'sawfully persistent. "

I turned it over in front and examined the palm. At sight of it mybrain reeled. This was surely magic! Minnie Moore's hand, too, wasscarred over with cuts, exactly like Aunt Emma's!"

"Why, how on earth did you do that?" I cried, thunderstruck at thediscovery. 

But Minnie only laughed again, a bright girlish laugh. 

"Climbing over that beastly wall at The Grange, " she said with amerry look. "Oh, what fun we did have! We climbed it together. Wewere dreadful tomboys in those days, dear, you and I: but you wereluckier than I was, and didn't cut yourself with the bottle-glass. "

This was too surprising to be passed over unnoticed. When Minnie wasgone, I lay awake and pondered about it. Had all the Moores gotscars on their hands, I wondered? And how many people, I askedmyself, had cut themselves time and again in climbing over thatbarricaded garden-wall of my father's?

The Moore hand might be hereditary, but not surely the scars. Wasthe murderer, then, a Moore, and was that the meaning of Dr. Marten's warning?

CHAPTER XIII. 

DR. IVOR OF BABBICOMBE

Two days later, Cousin Willie drove us over to Berry Pomeroy. Thelion of the place is the castle, of course; but Minnie had told himbeforehand I wanted, for reasons of my own, to visit thecricket-field where the sports were held "the year Dr. Ivor won themile race, you remember. " So we went there straight. As soon as weentered, I recognised the field at once, and the pavilion, and thewoods, as being precisely the same as those presented in thephotograph. But I got no further than that. The captain of thecricket-club was on the ground that day, and I managed to get intoconversation with him, and strolled off in the grounds. There Ishowed him the photograph, and asked if he could identify the manclimbing over the wagon: but he said he couldn't recognise him. Somebody or other from Torquay, perhaps; not a regular resident. Thefigures were so small, and so difficult to make sure about. If I'dleave him the photograph, perhaps--but at that I drew back, for Ididn't want anybody, least of all at Torquay, to know what quest Iwas engaged upon. 

We drove back, a merry party enough, in spite of my failure. Minniewas always so jolly, and her mirth was contagious. She talked allthe way still of Dr. Ivor, half-teasing me. It was all very well mypretending not to remember, she said; but why did I want to see thecricket-field if it wasn't for that? Poor Courtenay! if only heknew, how delighted he'd be to know he wasn't forgotten! For hereally took it to heart, my illness--she always called it myillness, and so I suppose it was. From the day I lost my memory, nothing seemed to go right with him; and he was never content tillhe went and buried himself somewhere in the wilds of Canada. 

That evening again, I sat with Minnie in my room. I was depressedand distressed. I didn't want to cry before Minnie, but I could havecried with good heart for sheer vexation. Of course I couldn't bearto go showing the photograph to all the world, and letting everybodysee I'd made myself a sort of amateur detective. They would mistakemy motives so. And yet I didn't know how I was ever to find out myman any other way. It was that or nothing. I made up my mind I wouldask Cousin Willie. 

I took out the photograph, as if unintentionally, when I went to mybox, and laid it down with my curling-tongs on the table close byMinnie. Minnie took it up abstractedly and looked at it with anindefinite gaze. 

"Why, this is the cricket-field!" she cried, as soon as shecollected her senses. "One of your father's experiments. Theearliest acmegraphs. How splendidly they come out! See, that's SirEverard at the bottom; and there's little Jack Hillier above; andthis on one side's Captain Brooks; and there, in front of all--well, you know HIM anyhow, Una. Now, don't pretend you forget! That'sCourtenay Ivor!"

Her finger was on the man who stood poised ready to jump. With anawful recoil, I drew back and suppressed a scream. It was on the tipof my tongue to cry out, "Why, that's my father's murderer!"

But, happily, with a great effort of will I restrained myself. I sawit all at a glance. That, then, was the meaning of Dr. Marten'swarning! No wonder, I thought, the shock had disorganised my wholebrain. If Minnie was right, I was in love once with that man. And Imust have seen my lover murder my father!

For I didn't doubt, from what Minnie said, I had really once lovedDr. Ivor. Horrible and ghastly as it might be to realise it, Ididn't doubt it was the truth. I had once loved the very man I wasnow bent on pursuing as a criminal and a murderer!

"You're sure that's him, Minnie?" I cried, trying to conceal myagitation. "You're sure that's Courtenay Ivor, the man stooping onthe wagon-top?"

Minnie looked at me, smiling. She thought I was asking for a verydifferent reason. 

"Yes, that's him, right enough, dear, " she said. "I could tell himamong a thousand. Why, the Moore hand alone would be quite enough toknow him by. It's just like my own. We've all of us got it--exceptyourself. I always said you weren't one of us. You're a regular bornCallingham. "

I gazed at her fixedly. I could hardly speak. 

"Oh, Minnie!" I cried once more, "have you . . . Have you anyphotograph of him?"

"No, we haven't, dear, " Minnie answered. 

"That was a fad of Courtenay's, you know. Wherever he went, he'dnever be photographed. He was annoyed that day that your fathershould have taken him unawares. He hated being 'done, ' he said. He'sso handsome and so nice, but he's not a bit conceited. And he wassuch a splendid bicyclist! He rode over and back on his bicycle thatday, and then ran in all the races as if it were nothing. "

A light burst over me at once. This was circumstantial evidence. Themurderer who disappeared as if by magic the moment his crime wascommitted must have come and gone all unseen, no doubt, on hisbicycle. He must have left it under the window till his vile deedwas done, and then leapt out upon it in a second and dashed offwhence he came like a flash of lightning. 

It was a premeditated crime, in that case, not the mere casualresult of a sudden quarrel. 

I must find out this man now, were it only to relieve my own senseof mystery. 

"Minnie, " I said once more, screwing up my courage to ask, "where'sDr. Ivor now? I mean--that is to say--in what part of Canada?"

Minnie looked at me and laughed. 

"There, I told you so!" she said, merrily. "It's not the least bitof use your pretending you're not in love with him, Una. Why, justlook how you tremble! You're as white as a ghost! And then you sayyou don't care for poor Courtenay! I forget the exact name of theplace where he lives, but I've got it in my desk, and I can tell youto-morrow. --Oh, yes; it's Palmyra, on the Canada Pacific. I supposeyou want to write to him. Or perhaps you mean to go out and offeryourself bodily. "

It was awful having to bottle up the truth in one's own heart, andto laugh and jest like this; but I endured it somehow. 

"No, it's not that, " I said gravely. "I've other reasons of my ownfor asking his address, Minnie. I want to go out there, it's true;but not because I cherish the faintest pleasing recollection of Dr. Ivor in any way. "

Minnie scanned me over in surprise. 

"Well, how you ARE altered, Una!" she cried. "I love you, dear, andlike you every bit as much as ever. But you've changed so much. Idon't think you're at all what you used to be. You're so grave andsombre. "

"No wonder, Minnie, " I exclaimed, bursting gladly into tears--theexcuse was such a relief--"no wonder, when you think how much I'vepassed through!"

Minnie flung her arms around my neck, and kissed me over and overagain. 

"Oh, dear!" she cried, melting. "What have I done? What have I said?I ought never to have spoken so. It was cruel of me--cruel, Unadear. I shall stop here to-night, and sleep with you. "

"Oh, thank you, darling!" I cried. "Minnie, that IS good of you. I'mso awfully glad. For to-morrow I must be thinking of getting readyfor Canada. "

"Canada!" Minnie exclaimed, alarmed. "You're not really going toCanada! Oh, Una, you're joking! You don't mean to say you're goingout there to find him!"

I took her hand in mine, and held it up in the air above her headsolemnly. 

"Dear cousin, " I said, "I love you. But you must promise me this onething. Whatever may happen, give me your sacred word of honouryou'll never tell anybody what we've said here to-night. You'llkill me if you do. I don't want any living soul on earth to know ofit. "

I spoke so seriously, Minnie felt it was important. 

"I promise you, " she answered, growing suddenly far graver than herwont. "Oh, Una, I haven't the faintest idea what you mean, but notorture on earth shall ever wring a word of it from me!"

So I went to bed in her arms, and cried myself to sleep, thinkingwith my latest breath, in a tremor of horror, that I'd found it atlast. Courtenay Ivor was the name of my father's murderer!

CHAPTER XIV. 

MY WELCOME TO CANADA

The voyage across the Atlantic was long and uneventful. No whales, no icebergs, no excitement of any sort. My fellow-passengers saidit was as dull as it was calm. But as for me, I had plenty to occupymy mind meanwhile. Strange things had happened in the interval, andwere happening to me on the way. Strange things, in part, of my owninternal history. 

For before I left England, as I sat with Aunt Emma in her littledrawing-room at Barton-on-the-Sea, discussing my plans and devisingroutes westward, she made me, quite suddenly, an unexpectedconfession. 

"Una, " she said, after a long pause, "you haven't told me, my dear, why you're going to Canada. And I don't want to ask you. I knowpretty well. We needn't touch upon that. You're going to hunt upsome supposed clue to the murderer. "

"Perhaps so, Auntie, " I said oracularly: "and perhaps not. "

For I didn't want it to get talked about and be put into all thenewspapers. And I knew now if I wanted to keep it out, I must firstbe silent. 

Aunt Emma drew nearer and took my hand in hers. At the same time, she held up the other scarred and lacerated palm. 

"Do you know when I got that, Una?" she asked with a sudden burst. "Well, I'll tell you, my child. . . . It was the night of your father'sdeath. And I got it climbing over the wall at The Grange, to escapedetection. "

My blood ran cold once more. What on earth could this mean? HadAuntie--? But no. I had the evidence of my own senses that it wasCourtenay Ivor. I'd tracked him down now. There was no room fordoubt. The man on the wagon was the man who fired the shot. I couldhave sworn to that bent back, of my own knowledge, among a thousand. 

I hadn't long to wait, however. Auntie went on after a short pause. 

"I was there, " she said, "by accident, trying for once to see you. "

I looked at her fixedly still, and still I said nothing. 

"I was stopping with friends at the time, ten miles off fromWoodbury, " Aunt Emma went on, smoothing my hand with hers, "and Ilonged so to see you. I came over by train that day, and stoppedlate about the town in hopes I might meet you in the street. But Iwas disappointed. Towards evening I ventured even to go into thegrounds of The Grange, and look about everywhere on the chance thatI might see you. Perhaps your father might be out. I went roundtowards the window, which I now know to be the library. As I went, Isaw a bicycle leaning up against the wall by the window. I thoughtthat must be some visitor, but still I went on. But just as Ireached the window, I saw a flash of electric light; and by thelight, I could make out your father's head and beard. He looked asif he were talking angrily and loudly to somebody. The window wasopen. I was afraid to stop longer. In a sudden access of fear, I ranacross the shrubbery towards the garden-wall. To tell you the truth, I was horribly frightened. Why, I don't know; for nothing hadhappened as yet. I suppose it was just the dusk and the mean senseof intrusion. "

She paused and wiped her brow. I sat still, and listened eagerly. 

"Presently, " she went on, very low, "as I ran and ran, I heardbehind me a loud crash--a sound as of a pistol-shot. That terrifiedme still more. I thought I was being pursued. Perhaps they took mefor a burglar. In the agony of my terror, I rushed at the wall inmad haste, and climbed over it anyhow. In climbing, I tore my hand, as you see, and made myself bleed, oh, terribly! However, Ipersevered, and got down on the other side, with my clothes verylittle the worse for the scramble. And, fortunately, I was carryinga small light dust-cloak: I put it on at once, and it covered upeverything. Then I began to walk along the road as fast as I couldin the direction of the station. As I did so, a bicycle shot outfrom the gate in the opposite direction, going as hard as it couldspin, simply flying towards Whittingham. Three minutes later, a mancame up to me, breathless. It was the gardener at The Grange, Ibelieve. 

"'Have you seen anybody go this way?' he asked. 'A young man, running hard? A young man in knickerbockers?'

"'N--no, ' I answered, trembling; for I was afraid to confess. 'Not asoul has gone past!'

"Of course, I didn't know of the murder as yet; and I only wanted toget off unperceived to the station. 

"I'd bound up my hand in my handkerchief by that time, and held ittight under my cloak. I went back by train unnoticed, and returnedto my friends' house. I hadn't even told them I was going toWoodbury at all. I pretended I'd been spending the day atWhittingham. Next morning, I read in the paper of your father'smurder. "

I stared hard at Aunt Emma. 

"Why didn't you tell me this long ago?" I cried, in an agony ofsuspense. "Why didn't you give evidence and say so at the inquest?"

"How could I?" Aunt Emma answered, looking back at me appealingly. "The circumstances were too suspicious. As it was, everybody wasrunning after the young man in knickerbockers. Nobody took anynotice of a little old lady in a long grey dust-cloak. But if onceI'd confessed and shown my wounded hand, who would ever havebelieved I'd nothing to do with the murder?--except you, perhaps, Una. Oh no: I came back here to my own home as fast as ever I could;for I was really ill. I took to my bed at once. And as nobody calledme to give evidence at the inquest, I said nothing to anybody. "

"But the bicycle!" I cried. "The bicycle! You ought to havementioned that. You were the only one who saw it. It was a clue tothe murderer. "

"If I'd told, " Aunt Emma answered, "I should never have been allowedto take charge of you at all. I thought my one clear duty was to mysister's child: it was to take care of your health in your shatteredcondition. And even now, Una, I tell you only for this: if you findout anything new, in Canada or here, try not to drag me into it. Icouldn't stand the strain. Cross-examination would kill me. "

"I'll remember it, auntie, " I said, wearied out with excitement. "But I think you did wrong, all the same. In a case like this, it'severybody's first duty to tell all he knows, in the interests ofjustice. "

However, this confession of Aunt Emma's rendered one thing morecertain to me than ever before. I was sure I was on the right tracknow, after Courtenay Ivor. The bicycle clinched the proof. 

But I said nothing as yet to the police, or to my friendlyInspector. I was determined to hunt the whole thing up on my ownaccount first, and then deliver my criminal, when fully secured, tothe laws of my country. 

Not that I was vindictive. Not that I wanted to punish the man. No;I shrank terribly from the task. But to relieve myself from thispersistent sense of surrounding mystery, and to free others fromsuspicion, I felt compelled to discover him. It seemed to me like aduty laid upon me from without. I dared not shirk it. 

On the way out to Quebec, the sea seemed to revive strange memories. I had never crossed it before, except long, long ago, on my way homefrom Australia. And now that I sat on deck, in a wicker-chair, andlooked at the deep dark waves by myself, I began once more, in vaguesnatches, to recall that earlier voyage. It came back to me all ofitself. And that was quite in keeping with my previous recollections. My past life, I felt sure, was unfolding itself slowly to me inregular succession, from childhood onward. 

Sitting there on the quarter-deck, gazing hard at the waves, Iremembered how I had played on a similar ship years and yearsbefore, a little girl in short frocks, with my mamma in a longfolding-chair beside me. I could see my mamma, with a sort offrightened smile on her poor pale face; and she looked so unhappy. My papa was there too, somewhat older and greyer--very unlike thepapa of my first Australian picture. His face was so much hairier. Mamma cried a good deal at times, and papa tried to comfort her. Besides, what struck me most, there was no more baby. I wasn't evenallowed to speak about baby. That subject was tabooed--perhapsbecause it always made mamma cry so much, and press me hard to herbosom. At any rate, I remembered how once I spoke of baby to somefellow-passenger in the saloon, and papa was very angry, and caughtme up in his arms and took me down to my berth; and there I had tostop all day by myself (though it was rolling hard) and could haveno fruit for dinner, because I'd been naughty. I was strictlyenjoined never to mention baby to anyone again, either then or atany time. I was to forget all about her. 

Day after day, as we sailed on, reminiscences of the same sortcrowded thicker and thicker upon me. Never reminiscences of my laterlife, but always early scenes brought up by distinct suggestionof that Australian voyage. When we passed a ship, it burst upon mehow we'd passed such ships before: when there was fire-drill ondeck, I remembered having assisted years earlier at just suchfire-drill. The whole past came back like a dream, so that I couldreconstruct now the first five or six years of my life almostentirely. And yet, even so there was a gap, a puzzle, a difficultysomehow. I couldn't make the chronology of this slow-returningmemory fit in as it ought with the chronology of the facts given tome by Aunt Emma and the Moores of Torquay. There was a constantdiscrepancy. It seemed to me that I must be a year or two older atleast than they made me out. I remembered the voyage home far toowell for my age. I fancied I went back further in my Australianrecollections than would be possible from the dates Aunt Emmaassigned me. 

Slowly, as I compared these mental pictures of my first childhoodone with the other, a strange fact seemed to loom forth, incomprehensible, incredible. When first it struck me, all unnervedas I was, my reason staggered before it. But it was true, none theless: quite true, I felt certain. Had I had two papas, then?--forthe pictures differed so. Was one, clean-shaven, trim, and in alinen coat, the same as the other, older, graver, and sterner, withmuch hair on his face, and a rough sort of look, whom I saw morepersistently in my later childish memories? I could hardly believeit. One man couldn't alter so greatly in a few short years. Yet Ithought of them both alike quite unquestioningly as papa: I thoughtof them too, I fancied, in a dim sort of way, as one and the sameperson. 

These fresh mysteries occupied my mind for the greater part of thatuneventful voyage. To throw them off, I laughed and talked as muchas possible with the rest of the passengers. Indeed, I gained thereputation of being "an awfully jolly girl, " so heartily did I throwmyself into all the games and amusements, to escape from the burdenof my pressing thoughts: and I believe many old ladies on board werethoroughly scandalised that a woman whose father had been brutallymurdered should ever be able to seem so bright and lively again. Howlittle they knew! And what a world of mystery seemed to oppress andsurround me!

At last, early one morning, we reached the Gulf, and took in ourpilot off the Straits of Belleisle. I was on deck at the time, playing a game called "Shovelboard. " As the pilot reached the ship, he took the captain's hand, and, to my immense surprise, said in anaudible voice:

"So you've the famous Miss Callingham for a passenger, I hear, thisvoyage. There's the latest Quebec papers. You'll see you're lookedfor. Our people are expecting her. "

I rushed forward, fiery hot, and with a trembling hand took one ofthe papers he was distributing all round, right and left, to thepeople on deck. It was unendurable that the memory of that one eventshould thus dog me through life with such ubiquitous persistence. Itore open the sheet. There, with horrified eyes, I read this hatefulparagraph, in the atrociously vulgar style of Transatlanticjournalism:

"The Sarmatian, expected off Belleisle to-morrow morning, bringsamong her passengers, as we learn by telegram, the famous UnaCallingham, whose connection with the so-called Woodbury Mystery isnow a matter of historical interest. The mysterious two-souled ladypossesses, at present, all her faculties intact, as before themurder, and is indeed, people say, a remarkably spry and intelligentyoung person; but she has most conveniently forgotten all the eventsof her past life, and more particularly the circumstances of herfather's death, which is commonly conjectured to have been due tothe pistol of some unknown lover. Such freaks of memory are common, we all know, in the matter of small debts and of newspapersubscriptions, but they seldom extend quite so far as the violentdeath of a near relation. However, Una knows her own business best. The Sarmatian is due alongside the Bonsecours Quay at 10 a. M. OnWednesday, the 10th; and all Quebec will, no doubt, be assembled atthe landing-stage to say 'Good-morning' to the two-souled lady. "

The paper dropped from my hand. This was too horrible for anything!How I was ever to go through the ordeal of the landing at Quebecafter that, I hadn't the faintest conception. And was I to be doggedand annoyed like this through all my Canadian trip by anonymousscribblers? Had these people no hearts? no consideration for thesensitiveness of an English lady?

I looked over the side of the ship at the dark-blue water. Oh, howI longed to plunge into it and be released for ever from thisabiding nightmare!

CHAPTER XV. 

A NEW ACQUAINTANCE

The moment we reached the quay at Quebec, some two days later, adozen young men, with little notebooks in their hands, jumped onboard all at once. 

"Miss Callingham!" they cried with one accord, making a dash for thequarter-deck. "Which is she? Oh, this!--If you please, MissCallingham, I should like to have ten minutes of your time tointerview you!"

I clapped my hands to my ears, and stood back, all horrified. What Ishould have done, I don't know, but for a very kind man in a bigrough overcoat, who had jumped on board at the same time, and madeover to me like the reporters. He stepped up to me at once, pushedaside the young men, and said in a most friendly tone:

"Miss Callingham, I think? You'd better come with me, then. Thesepeople are all sharks. Everybody in Quebec's agog to see the Two-souled Lady. Answer no questions at all. Take not the least noticeof them. Just follow me to the Custom House. Let them rave, butdon't speak to them. "

"Who are you?" I asked blindly, clinging to his arm in my terror. 

"I'm a policeman in plain clothes, " my new friend answered; "andI've been specially detailed by order for this duty. I'm here tolook after you. You've friends in Canada, though you may have quiteforgotten them. They've sent me to help you. Those are two of mychums there, standing aside by the gangway. We'll walk you offbetween us. Don't be afraid. --Here, you sir, there; make way!--Noone shall come near you. "

I was so nervous, and so ashamed that I accepted my strange escortwithout inquiry or remonstrance. He helped me, with remarkablepoliteness for a common policeman, across to the Custom House, whereI sat waiting for my luggage. Reporters and sightseers, meanwhile, pressed obtrusively around me. My protector held them back. I washalf wild with embarrassment. I'm naturally a reserved and somewhatsensitive girl, and this American publicity made me crimson withbashfulness. 

As I sat there waiting, however, the two other policemen to whom mychampion had beckoned sat one on each side of me, keeping off theidle crowd, while my first friend looked after the luggage and sawit safely through the Customs for me. He must be an Inspector, Ifancied, or some other superior officer, the officials were sodeferential to him. I gave him my keys, and he looked aftereverything himself. I had nothing, for my part, to do but to sit andwait patiently for him. 

As soon as he had finished, he called a porter to his side. 

"Vite!" he cried, in a tone of authority, to the man. "Un fiacre!"

And the porter called one. 

I started to find that I knew what he meant. Till that moment, in mySecond State, I had learned no French, and didn't know I could speakany. But I recognised the words quite well as soon as he utteredthem. My lost knowledge reasserted itself. 

They bundled on my boxes. The crowd still stood around and gaped atme, open-mouthed. I got into the cab, more dead than alive. 

"Allez!" my policeman cried to the French-Canadian driver, seatinghimself by my side. 

"A la gare du chemin de fer Pacific! Aussi vite que possible!"

I understood every word. This was wonderful. My memory was comingback again. 

The man tore along the streets to the Pacific railway station. Bythe time we reached it we had distanced the sightseers, though someof them gave chase. My policeman got out. 

"The train's just going!" he said sharply. "Don't take a ticket forPalmyra, if you don't want to be followed and tracked out all theway. They'll telegraph on your destination. Book to Kingstoninstead, and then change at Sharbot Lake, and take a second ticketon from there to Palmyra. "

I listened, half dazed. Palmyra was the place where Dr. Ivor lived. Yet, even in the hurry of the moment, I wondered much to myself howthe policeman knew I wanted to go to Palmyra. 

There was no time to ask questions, however, or to deliberate on myplans. I took my ticket as desired, in a turmoil of feelings, andjumped on to the train. I trusted by this time I had eludeddetection. I ought to have come, I saw now, under a feigned name. This horrid publicity was more than I could endure. My policemanhelped me in with his persistent politeness, and saw my boxeschecked as far as Sharbot Lake for me. Then he handed me the checks. 

"Go in the Pullman, " he said quietly. "It's a long journey, youknow: four-and-twenty hours. You've only just caught it. But ifyou'd stopped in Quebec, you'd never have been able to give thesightseers the slip. You'd have been pestered all through. I thinkyou're safe now. It was this or nothing. "

"Oh, thank you so much!" I cried, with heartfelt gratitude, leaningout of the window as the train was on the point of starting. Ipulled out my purse, and drew timidly forth a sovereign. "I've onlyEnglish money, " I said, hesitating, for I didn't know whether he'dbe offended or not at the offer of a tip--he seemed such a perfectgentleman. "But if that's any use to you--"

He smiled a broad smile and shook his head, much amused. 

"Oh, thank you, " he said, half laughing, with a very curious air. "I'm a policeman, as I told you. But I don't need tips. I'm theChief Constable of Quebec--there's my card; Major Tascherel, --andI'm glad to be of use, I'm sure, to any friend of Dr. Ivor's. "

He lifted his hat with the inborn grace of a high-born gentleman. Icoloured and bowed. The train steamed out of the station. As itwent, I fell back, half fainting, in the comfortable armchair of thePullman car, hardly able to speak with surprise and horror. It wasall so strange, so puzzling, so bewildering! Then I owed my escapefrom the stenographic myrmidons of the Canadian Press to the politecare and attention of my father's murderer!

Major Tascherel was a friend, he said, of Dr. Ivor's!

Then Dr. Ivor knew I had come. He knew I was going to Palmyra tofind him. And yet he had written to Quebec, apparently, expectingthis crush, and asking his friend the Chief Constable to protect andbefriend me. Had he murdered my father, and was he in love with mestill? Did he think I'd come out, not to track him down, but to lookfor him? Strange, horrible questions! My heart stood still within meat this extraordinary revelation. Yet I was so frightened at themoment, alone in a strange land, that I felt almost grateful to themurderer himself for his kindness in thinking of me and providingfor my reception. 

As I settled in my seat and had time to realise what these thingsmeant, it dawned upon me by degrees that all this was lessremarkable, after all, than I first thought it. For they hadtelegraphed from England that I sailed on the Sarmatian; and Dr. Ivor, like everybody else, must have read the telegram. He mightnaturally conclude I would be half-mobbed by reporters; and as itwas clear he had once been fond of me--hateful as I felt it even toadmit the fact to myself--he might really have desired to save meannoyance and trouble. It was degrading, to be sure, even to think Iowed anything of any sort to such a wretch as that murderer; yet ina certain corner of my heart I couldn't help being thankful to him. But how strange to feel I had come there on purpose to hunt himdown! How horrible that I must so repay good with evil!

Then a still more ghastly thought surged up suddenly in my mind. Whyon earth did he think I was going to Palmyra? Was it possible hefancied I loved him still--that I wanted to marry him? Could heimagine I'd come out just to fling myself at his feet and ask him totake me? Could he suppose I'd forgotten all the rest of my pastlife, and his vile act as well, and yet remembered alone whatlittle love, if any, I ever had borne him? It was incredible thatany man, however wicked, however conceited, should think such follyas that--that a girl would marry her father's murderer; and yet whatmight not one expect from a man who, after having shot my father, had still the inconceivable and unbelievable audacity to takedeliberate steps for securing my own comfort and happiness? Fromsuch a wretch as that, one might look for almost anything!

For ten minutes or more, as we whirled along the line in the Pullmancar, I was too dazed and confused to notice anything around me. Mybrain swam vaguely, filled full with wild whirling thoughts; thestrange drama of my life, always teeming with mysteries, seemed toculminate in this reception in an unknown land by people whoappeared almost to know more about my business than I myself did. Igazed out of the window blankly. In some vague dim way I saw we werepassing between rocky hills, pine-clad and beautiful, with deepglimpses now and then into the riven gorge of a noble river. But Ididn't even realise to myself that these were Canadian hills--thosewere the heights of Abraham--that was the silver St. Lawrence. Itall passed by like a living dream. I sat still in my chair, as onestunned and faint; I gazed out, more dead than alive, on theunfamiliar scene that unrolled itself in exquisite panorama beforeme. Quebec and the Laurentian hills were to me half unreal: theinner senses alone were awake and conscious. 

Presently a gentle voice at my side broke, not at all unpleasantly, the current of my reflections. It was a lady's voice, very sweet andmusical. 

"I'm afraid, " it said kindly, with an air of tender solicitude, "youonly just caught the train, and were hurried and worried andflurried at the last at the station. You look so white and tired. How your breath comes and goes! And I think you're new to ourCanadian ways. I saw you didn't understand about the checks for thebaggage. Let me take away this bag and put it up in the rack foryou. Here's a footstool for your feet; that'll make you morecomfortable. "

At the first sound of her sweet voice, I turned to look at thespeaker. She was a girl, perhaps a year or two younger than myself, very slender and graceful, and with eyes like a mother's. She wasn'texactly pretty, but her face was so full of intelligence andexpression that it was worth a great deal more than any doll-likeprettiness. 

Perhaps it was pleasure at being spoken to kindly at all in thisland of strangers; perhaps it was revulsion from the agony of shameand modesty I had endured at Quebec; but, at any rate, I felt drawnat first sight to my sweet-voiced fellow-traveller. Besides, shereminded me somewhat of Minnie Moore, and that resemblance alone wasenough to attract me. I looked up at her gratefully. 

"Oh, thank you so much!" I cried, putting my bag in her hand. "I'veonly just come out from England; and I'd hardly time at Quebec tocatch the train; and the people crowded around so, that I wasflustered at landing; and everything somehow seems to be goingagainst me. "

And with that my poor overwrought nerves gave way all at once, andwithout any more ado I just burst out crying. 

The lady by my side leant over me tenderly. 

"There--cry, dear, " she said, as if she'd known me for years, stooping down and almost caressing me. "Jack, "--and she turned to atall gentleman at her side, --"quick! you've got my black bag; get meout the sal volatile. She's quite faint, poor thing; we must lookafter her instantly. "

The person to whom she spoke, and who was apparently her husband orher brother, took down the black bag from the rack hastily, and gotout the sal volatile, as my friend directed him. He poured a littleinto a tumbler and held it quietly to my lips. I liked his manner, as I'd liked the lady's. He was so very brotherly. Besides, therewas something extremely soothing about his quick, noiseless way. Hedid it all so fast, yet without the faintest sign of agitation. Icouldn't help thinking what a good nurse he would make; he was sorapid and effective, yet so gentle and so quiet. He seemed perfectlyaccustomed to the ways of nervous women. 

I dried my eyes after a while, and looked up in his face. He wasvery good-looking, and had a charming soft smile. How lucky I shouldhave tumbled upon such pleasant travelling companions! In my presentmental state, I had need of sympathy. And, indeed, they took as muchcare of me, and coddled me up as tenderly, as if they'd known me foryears. I was almost tempted to make a clean breast of my personalityto them, and tell them why it was I had been so worried and upset bymy reception at Quebec: but I shrank from confessing it. I hated myown name, almost, it seemed to bring me such very unpleasantnotoriety. 

In a very few minutes, I felt quite at home with my new friends. Iexplained to them that when I landed I had no intention of going onWest by train at once, but that news which I received on the way hadcompelled me to push forward by the very first chance; and that Ihad to change my ticket at a place called Sharbot Lake, whose veryposition or distance I hadn't had time to discover. The lady smiledsweetly, and calmed my fears by telling me we wouldn't reach SharbotLake till mid-day to-morrow, and that I would have plenty of timethere to book on to my destination. 

Thus encouraged, I went on to tell them I had no Canadian money, having brought out what I needed for travelling expenses and hotelsin Bank of England 20 pound notes. The lady smiled again, and saidin the friendliest way:

"Oh, my brother'll get them changed for you at Montreal as we pass, won't you, Jack? or at least as much as you need till you getto"--she checked herself--"the end of your journey. "

I noticed how she pulled herself up, though at the moment I attachedno particular importance to it. 

So he was her brother, not her husband, then! Well, he was a verynice fellow, either way, and nobody could be kinder or moresympathetic than he'd been to me so far. 

We fell into conversation, which soon by degrees grew quiteintimate. 

"How far West are you going?" the man she called Jack asked after alittle time, tentatively. 

And I answered, all unsuspiciously:

"To a place called Palmyra. "

"Why, we live not far from Palmyra, " the sister replied, with asmile. "We're going that way now. Our station's Adolphus Town, thevery next village. "

I hadn't yet learned to join the wisdom of the serpent to theinnocence of the dove, I'm afraid. Remember, though in some ways Iwas a woman full grown, in others I was little more than a four-year-old baby. 

"Do you know a Dr. Ivor there?" I asked eagerly, leaning forward. 

"Oh, yes, quite well, " the lady answered, arranging my footstoolmore comfortably as she spoke. "He's got a farm out there now, andhardly practises at all. How queer it is! One always finds one knowspeople in common. Is Dr. Ivor a friend of yours?"

I recoiled at the stray question almost as if I'd been shot. 

"Oh, no!" I cried, horrified at the bare idea of such treason. "He'sanything but a friend. . . I--I only wanted to know about him. "

The lady looked at Jack, and Jack looked at the lady. Were theytelegraphing signs? I fancied somehow they gave one another verymeaning glances. Jack was the first to speak, breaking an awkwardsilence. 

"You can't expect everyone to know your own friends, or to like themeither, Elsie, " he said slowly, with his eyes fixed hard on her, asif he expected her to flare up. 

My heart misgave me. A hateful idea arose in it. Could my sweettravelling companion be engaged--to my father's murderer?

"But he's a dear good fellow, for all that, Jack, " Elsie saidstoutly; and strange as it sounds to say so, I admired her forsticking up for her friend Dr. Ivor, if she really liked him. "Iwon't hear him run down by anybody, not even by YOU. If this ladyknew him better, I'm sure she'd like him, as we all do. "

Jack turned the conversation abruptly. 

"But if you're going to Palmyra, " he asked, "where do you mean tostop? Have you thought about lodgings? You mustn't imagine it's aplace like an English town, with an inn or hotel or good privateapartments. There's nowhere you can put up at in these brand-newvillages. Are you going to friends, or did you expect to findquarters as easily as in England?"

This was a difficulty which, indeed, had never even occurred to metill that moment. I stammered and hesitated. 

"Well, " I said slowly, "to tell you the truth, I haven't thoughtabout that. The landing at Quebec was such a dreadful surprise tome, and"--tears came into my eyes again--"I had a great shockthere--and I had to come on so quick, I didn't ask about anythingbut catching the train. I meant to stop a night or two either atQuebec or in Montreal, and to make all inquiries: but circumstances, you see, have prevented that. So I really don't know what I'd betterdo when I get to Palmyra. "

"I do, " my new friend answered quickly, her soft sweet voice havingquite a decisive ring in it. "You'd better not go on to Palmyra atall. There's no sort of accommodation there, except a horriddrinking-saloon. You'd better stop short at Adolphus Town and spendthe night with us; and then you can look about you next day, if youlike, and see what chance there may be of finding decent quarters. Old Mrs. Wilkins might take her in, Jack, or the Blacks at thetannery. "

I smiled, and felt touched. 

"Oh, how good of you!" I cried. "But I really couldn't think of it. Thank you ever so much, though, for your kind thought, all the same. It's so good and sweet of you. But you don't even know who I am. Ihave no introduction. "

"You're your own best introduction, " Elsie said, with a pretty nod:I thought of her somehow from the very first moment I heard her nameas Elsie. "And as to your not knowing us, never mind about that. Weknow YOU at first sight. It's the Canadian way to entertain Angelsunawares. Out here, you know, hospitality's the rule of thecountry. "

Well, I demurred for a long time; I fought off their invitation aswell as I could: I couldn't bear thus to quarter myself upon utterstrangers. But they both were so pressing, and brought up so manycogent arguments why I couldn't go alone to the one villagesaloon--a mere whisky-drinking public-house, they said, of very badcharacter, --that in the long run I was fain almost to acquiesce intheir kind plan for my temporary housing. Besides, after my horridexperience at Quebec, it was such a positive relief to me to meetanybody nice and delicate, that I couldn't find it in my heart torefuse these dear people. And then, perhaps it was best not to goquite on to Palmyra at once, for fear of unexpectedly runningagainst my father's murderer. If I met him in the street, and herecognised me and spoke to me, what on earth could I do? My head wasall in a whirl, indeed, as to what he might intend or expect: for Ifelt sure he expected me. I made one last despairing effort. 

"If I stop at your house, though, " I said, half ashamed of myselffor venturing to make conditions, "there's one promise you must makeme--that I sha'n't see Dr. Ivor unless you let me know and get myconsent beforehand. "

Jack, as I called him to myself, answered gaily back with a rathercurious smile:

"If you like, you need see nobody but our own two selves. We'llpromise not to introduce anybody to you without due leave, and tolet you do as you like in that and in everything. "

So I yielded at last. 

"Well, I must know your name, " I said tentatively. 

And Jack, looking queerly at me with an inquiring air, said:

"My sister's name's Elsie; mine's John Cheriton. "

"And yours?" Elsie asked, glancing timidly down at me. 

My heart beat hard. I was face to face with a dilemma. These werefriends of Courtenay Ivor's, and I had given myself away to them. Iwas going to their house, to accept their hospitality--and tobetray their friend! Never in my life did I feel so guilty before. Oh! what on earth was I to do? I had told them too much; I had goneto work foolishly. If I said my real name, I should let out my wholesecret. I must brazen it out now. With tremulous lips and flushedcheek, I answered quickly, "Julia Marsden. "

Elsie drew back, all abashed. In a moment her cheek grew stillredder, I felt sure, than my own. 

"Oh, Marsden!" she cried, eyeing me close. "Why, I thought you wereMiss Callingham!"

"How on earth did you know that?" I exclaimed, terrified almost outof my life. Was I never for one moment to escape my own personality?

"Why, they put it in the papers that you were coming, " Elsieanswered, looking tenderly at me, more in sympathy than in anger. "And it's written on your bag, you know, that Jack put up in therack there. . . That's why we were so sorry for you, and so grieved atthe way you must have been hustled on the quay. And that's also whywe wanted you to come to us. . . But don't be a bit afraid. We quiteunderstand you want to travel incognita. After the sort of receptionyou got at Quebec, no wonder you're afraid of these hatefulsightseers!. . . Very well, dear, " she took my hand with the air of anold friend, "your disguise shall be respected while you stop at ourhouse. Miss Marsden let it be. You can make any inquiries you likeabout Dr. Ivor. We will be secrecy itself. We'll say nothing toanyone. And my brother'll take your ticket at Sharbot Lake forAdolphus Town. "

I broke down once more. I fairly cried at such kindness. 

"Oh, how good you are!" I said. "How very, very good. This is morethan one could ever have expected from strangers. "

She held my hand and stroked it. 

"We're not strangers, " she answered. "We're English ourselves. Wesympathise deeply with you in this new, strange country. You musttreat us exactly like a brother and sister. We liked you at firstsight, and we're sure we'll get on with you. "

I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed it. 

"And I liked you also, " I said, "and your brother, too. You're bothso good and kind. How can I ever sufficiently thank you?"

CHAPTER XVI. 

MY PLANS ALTER

The rest of that day we spent chatting very amicably in our Pullmanarm-chairs. I couldn't understand it myself--when I had a moment tothink, I was shocked and horrified at it. I was so terribly at homewith them. These were friends of Dr. Ivor's--friends of my father'smurderer! I had come out to Canada to track him, to deliver himover, if I could, to the strong hand of Justice. And yet, there Iwas talking away with his neighbours and friends as if I had knownthem all my life, and loved them dearly. Nay, what was more, Icouldn't in my heart of hearts help liking them. They were reallysweet people--so kind and sympathetic, so perceptive of mysensitiveness. They asked no questions that could hurt me in anyway. They showed no curiosity about the object of my visit or myrelation to Dr. Ivor. They were kindness and courtesy itself. Icould see Mr. Cheriton was a gentleman in fibre, and Elsie was assweet as any woman on earth could be. 

By-and-by, the time came for the Pullman saloon to be transformedfor the night into a regular sleeping-car. All this was new to me, and I watched it with interest. As soon as the beds were made up, Icrept into my berth, and my new friend Elsie took her place on thesofa below me. I lay awake long and thought over the situation. Themore I thought of it, the stranger it all seemed. I tried hard topersuade myself I was running some great danger in accepting theCheritons' invitation. Certainly, I had behaved with consummateimprudence. Canada is a country, I said to myself, where they kidnapand murder well-to-do young Englishmen. How much easier, then, tokidnap and murder a poor weak stray English girl! I was entirely atthe mercy of the Cheritons, that was clear: and the Cheritons wereDr. Ivor's friends. As I thought all the circumstances over, thefull folly of my own conduct came home to me more and more. I hadlet these people suppose I was travelling under an assumed name. Ihad let them know my ticket was not for Palmyra but for Kingston, where I didn't mean to go. I had told them I meant to change it atSharbot Lake. So they were aware that no one on earth but themselveshad any idea where I had gone. And I had further divulged to themthe important fact that I had plenty of ready money in Bank ofEngland notes! I stood aghast at my own silliness. But still, I didNOT distrust them. 

No, I did NOT distrust them. I felt I ought to be distrustful. Ifelt it might be expected of me. But they were so gentle-manneredand so sweet-natured, that I couldn't distrust them. I tried veryhard, but distrust wouldn't come to me. That kind fellow Jack--Ithought of him, just so, as Jack already--couldn't hurt a fly, muchless kill a woman. It grieved me to think I would have to hurt hisfeelings. 

For now that I came to look things squarely in the face in my berthby myself, I began to see how utterly impossible it would be for meafter all to go and stop with the Cheritons. How I could ever havedreamt it feasible I could hardly conceive. I ought to have refusedat once. I ought to have been braver. I ought to have said outright, "I'll have nothing to do or say with anyone who is a friend or anacquaintance of Courtenay Ivor's. " And yet, to have said so wouldhave been to give up the game for lost. It would have been toproclaim that I had come out to Canada as Courtenay Ivor's enemy. 

I wasn't fit, that was the fact, for my self-imposed task ofprivate detective. 

A good part of that night I lay awake in my berth, bitterlyreproaching myself for having come on this wild-goose chase withoutthe aid of a man--an experienced officer. Next morning, I rose andbreakfasted in the car. The Cheritons breakfasted with me, and, sadto say, seemed more charming than ever. That good fellow Jack was soattentive and kind, I almost felt ashamed to have to refuse hishospitality; and as for Elsie, she couldn't have treated me morenicely or cordially if she'd been my own sister. It wasn't what theysaid that touched my heart: it was what they didn't say or do--theirsweet, generous reticence. 

After breakfast, I steeled myself for the task, and broke it to themgently that, thinking it over in the night, I'd come to theconclusion I couldn't consistently accept their proffered welcome. 

"I don't know how to say NO to you, " I cried, "after you've been sowonderfully kind and nice; but reasons which I can't fully explainjust now make me feel it would be wrong of me to think of stoppingwith you. It would hamper my independence of action to be in anybodyelse's house. I must shift for myself, and try if I can't find boardand lodging somewhere. "

"Find it with us then!" Elsie put in eagerly. "If that's all that'sthe matter, I'm sure we're not proud--are we, Jack?--not a bit. Sooner than you should go elsewhere and be uncomfortable in yourrooms, I'd take you in myself, and board you and look after you. Youcould pay what you like; and then you'd retain your independence, you see, as much as ever you wanted. "

But her brother interrupted her with a somewhat graver air:

"It goes deeper than that, I'm afraid, Elsie, " he said, turning hiseye full upon her. "If Miss Callingham feels she couldn't be happyin stopping with us, she'd better try elsewhere. Though where onearth we can put her, I haven't just now the very slightest idea. But we'll turn it over in our own minds before we reach AdolphusTown. "

There was a sweet reasonableness about Jack that attracted megreatly. I could see he entered vaguely into the real nature of myfeelings. But he wouldn't cross-question me: he was too much of agentleman. 

"Miss Callingham knows her own motives best, " he said more thanonce, when Elsie tried to return to the charge. "If she feels shecan't come to us, we must be content to do the best we can for herwith our neighbours. Perhaps Mrs. Walters would take her in: she'sour clergyman's wife, Miss Callingham, and you mightn't feel thesame awkwardness with her as with my sister. "

"Does she know--Dr. Ivor?" I faltered out, unable to conceal my realreasons entirely. 

"Not so intimately as we do, " Jack answered, with a quick glance athis sister. "We might ask her at any rate. There are so few housesin Palmyra or the neighbourhood where you could live as you'reaccustomed, that we mustn't be particular. But at least you'll spendone night with us, and then we can arrange all the other thingsafterward. "

My mind was made up. 

"No, not even one night, " I said. I couldn't accept hospitality fromDr. Ivor's friends. Between his faction and mine there could benothing now but the bitterest enmity. How dare I even parley withpeople who were friends of my father's murderer?

Yet I was sorry to disappoint that good fellow, Jack, all the same. Did he want me to sleep one night at his house on purpose to rob meand murder me? Girl as I was, and rendered timorous in some ways bythe terrible shocks I had received, I couldn't for one momentbelieve it. I KNEW he was good: I KNEW he was honourable, gentle, agentleman. 

So, journeying on all morning, we reached Sharbot Lake, still withnothing decided. At the little junction station, Jack got me myticket. That was the turning point in my career. The die was cast. There I lost my identity. A crowd lounged around the platform, andsurged about the Pullman car, calling to see "Una Callingham. " Butno Una Callingham appeared on the scene. I went, on in the sametrain, without a word to anyone, all unknown save to the twoCheritons, and as an unrecognised unit of common humanity. I hadcast that horrid identity clean behind me. 

The afternoon was pleasant. In spite of my uncertainty, it gave me asense of pleased confidence to be in the Cheritons' company. I hadtaken to them at once: and the more I talked with them, the better Iliked them. Especially Jack, that nice brotherly Jack, who seemedalmost like an old friend to me. You get to know people so well on along railway journey. I was quite sorry to think that by fiveo'clock that afternoon we should reach Adolphus Town, and so partcompany. 

About ten minutes to five, we were collecting our scattered things, and putting our front-hair straight by the mirror in the ladies'compartment. 

"Well, Miss Cheriton, " I said warmly, longing to kiss her as Ispoke, "I shall never forget how kind you two have been to me. I dowish so much I hadn't to leave you like this. But it's quiteinevitable. I don't see really how I could ever endure--"

I said no more, for just at that moment, as the words trembled on mylips, a terrible jar thrilled suddenly through the length andbreadth of the carriage. Something in front seemed to rush into uswith a deep thud. There was a crash, a fierce grating, a dull hiss, a clatter. Broken glass was flying about. The very earth beneath thewheels seemed to give way under us. Next instant, all was blank. Ijust knew I was lying, bruised and stunned and bleeding, on a baredry bank, with my limbs aching painfully. 

I guessed what it all meant. A collision, no doubt. But I lay faintand ill, and knew nothing for the moment as to what had become of myfellow-passengers. 

CHAPTER XVII. 

A STRANGE RECOGNITION

Gradually I was aware of somebody moistening my temples. A soft palmheld my hand. Elsie was leaning over me. I opened my eyes with astart. 

"Oh, Elsie, " I cried, "how kind of you!"

It seemed to me quite natural to call her Elsie. 

Even as I spoke, somebody else raised my head and poured somethingdown my throat. I swallowed it with a gulp. Then I opened my eyesagain. 

"And Jack, too, " I murmured. 

It seemed as if he'd been "Jack" to me for years and years already. 

"She knows us!" Elsie cried, clasping her hands. "She's muchbetter--much better. Quick, Jack, more brandy! And make hastethere--a stretcher!"

There was a noise close by. Unseen hands lifted me up, and Jack laidme on the stretcher. Half-an-hour at least must have elapsed, I feltsince the first shock of the accident. I had been unconsciousmeanwhile. The actual crash came and went like lightning. And mymemory of all else was blotted out for the moment. 

Next, as I lay still, two men took the stretcher and carried me offat a slow pace, under Jack's direction. They walked single-filealong the line, and turned down a rough road that led off near ariver. I didn't ask where they were going: I was too weak andfeeble. At last they came to a house, a small white wooden cottage, very colonial and simple, but neat and pretty. There was a garden infront, full of old-fashioned flowering shrubs; and a verandah ranround the house, about whose posts clambered sweet English creepers. 

They carried me in, and laid me down on a bed, in a sweet littleroom, very plain but dainty. It was panelled with polishedpitchpine, and roses peeped in at the open window. Everything aboutthe cottage bore the impress of native good taste. I knew it wasJack's home. It was just such a room as I should have expected fromElsie. 

The bed on which they placed me was neat and soft. I lay theredozing with pain. Elsie sat by my side, her own arm in a sling. By-and-by, an Irish maid came in and undressed me carefully underElsie's direction. Then Elsie said to me, half shrinking:

"Now you must see the doctor. "

"Not Dr. Ivor!" I cried, waking up to a full sense of this newthreatened horror. "Whatever I do, dear, I WON'T see Dr. Ivor!"

Jack had come in while she spoke, and was standing by the bed, I sawnow. The servant had gone out. He lifted my arm, and held my wristin his hand. 

"I'm a doctor myself, Miss Callingham, " he said softly, with thatquiet, reassuring voice of his. "Don't be alarmed at that; nobodybut myself and Elsie need come near you in any way. "

I smiled at his words, well pleased. 

"Oh, I'm so glad you're a doctor!" I cried, much relieved at thenews; "for I'm not the least little bit in the world afraid of YOU. I don't mind your attending me. I like to have you with me. " For Ihad always a great fancy for doctors, somehow. 

"That's well, " he said, smiling at me such a sweet sympathetic smileas he felt my pulse with his finger. "Confidence is the first greatrequisite in a patient: it's half the battle. You're not seriouslyhurt, I hope, but you're very much shaken. Whether you like it ornot, you'll have to stop here now for some days at least, tillyou're thoroughly recovered. "

I'm ashamed to write it down; but I was really pleased to hear it. Nothing would have induced me to go voluntarily to their house withthe intention of stopping there--for they were friends of Dr. Ivor's. But when you're carried on a stretcher to the nearestconvenient house, you're not responsible for your own actions. Andthey were both so nice and kind, it was a pleasure to be near them. So I was almost thankful for that horrid accident, which had cut theGordian knot of my perplexity as to a house to lodge in. 

It was a fortnight before I was well enough to get out of bed andlie comfortably on the sofa. All that time Jack and Elsie tended mewith unsparing devotion. Elsie had a little bed made up in my room;and Jack came to see me two or three times a day, and sat for wholehours with me. It was so nice he was a doctor! A doctor, you know, isn't a man--in some ways. And it soothed me so to have him sittingthere with Elsie by my bedside. 

They were "Jack" and "Elsie" to me, to their faces, before threedays were out; and I was plain "Una" to them: it sounded so sweetand sisterly. Elsie slipped it out the second morning as naturallyas could be. 

"Una'd like a cup of tea, Jack;" then as red as fire all at once, she corrected herself, and added, "I mean, Miss Callingham. "

"Oh, do call me Una!" I cried; "it's so much nicer and morenatural. . . . But how did you come to know my name was Una at all?"For she slipped it out as glibly as if she'd always called me so. 

"Why, everybody knows that. " Elsie answered, amused. "The wholeworld speaks of you always as Una Callingham. You forget you're acelebrity. Doctors have read memoirs about you at MedicalCongresses. You've been discussed in every paper in Europe andAmerica. "

I paused and sighed. This was very humiliating. It was unpleasant torank in the public mind somewhere between Constance Kent and LauraBridgman. But I had to put up with it. 

"Very well, " I said, with a deep breath, "if those I don't care forcall me so behind my back, let me at least have the pleasure ofhearing myself called so by those I love, like you, Elsie. "

She leant over me and kissed my forehead with a burst of genuinedelight. 

"Then you love me, Una!" she exclaimed. 

"How can I help it?" I answered. "I love you dearly already. " And Imight have added with truth, "And your brother also. "

For Jack was really, without any exception, the most lovable man Iever met in my life--at once so strong and manly, and yet so womanlyand so gentle. Every day I stopped there, I liked him better andbetter. I was glad when he came into my room, and sorry when he wentaway again to work on the farm: for he worked very hard; his handwas all horny with common agricultural labour. It was sad to thinkof such a man having to do such work. And yet he was so clever, andsuch a capital doctor. I wondered he hadn't done well and stayed inEngland. But Elsie told me he'd had great disappointments, andfailed in his profession through no fault of his own. I could neverunderstand that: he had such a delightful manner. Though, perhaps Iwas prejudiced; for, in point of fact, I began to feel I was reallyin love with Jack Cheriton. 

And Jack was in love with me too. This was a curious result of myvoyage to Canada in search of Dr. Ivor! Instead of hunting up thecriminal, I had stopped to fall in love with one of his friends andneighbours. And I found it so delicious: I won't pretend to deny it. I was absolutely happy when Jack sat by my bedside and held my handin his. I didn't know what it would lead to, or whether it wouldever lead to anything at all; but I was happy meanwhile just to loveand be loved by him. I think when you're really in love, that'squite enough. Jack never proposed to me: he never asked me to marryhim. He just sat by my bedside and held my hand; and once, whenElsie went out to fetch my beef-tea, he stooped hastily down andkissed, me, oh, so tenderly! I don't know why, but I wasn't theleast surprised. It seemed to me quite natural that Jack should kissme. 

So I went idly on for a fortnight, in a sort of lazy lotus-land, never thinking of the future, but as happy and as much at home as ifI'd lived all my life with Jack and Elsie. I hated even to think Iwould soon be well; for then I'd have to go and look out forCourtenay Ivor. 

At last one afternoon I was sufficiently strong to be lifted out ofbed, and dressed in a morning robe, and laid out on the sofa in thelittle drawing-room. It looked out upon the verandah, which was highabove the ground; and Jack came in and sat with me, alone withoutElsie. My heart throbbed high at that: I liked to be alone forhalf-an-hour with Jack. Perhaps. . . But who knows? Well, at any rate, even if he didn't, it was nice to have the chance of a good long, quiet chat with him. I loved Elsie dearly; but at a moment likethis, why, I liked to have Jack all to myself without even Elsie. 

So I was pleased when Jack told me Elsie was going into Palmyra withthe buggy to get the English letters. Then she'd be gone a good longtime! Oh, how lovely! How beautiful!

"Is there anything you'd like from the town?" he asked, as Elsiedrove past the window. "Anything Elsie could get for you? If so, please say so. "

I hesitated a moment. 

"Do you think, " I asked at last, for I didn't want to betroublesome, "she could get me a lemon?"

"Oh, certainly, " Jack answered; "there she goes in the buggy! Here, wait a moment, Una! I'll run after her to the gate this minute andtell her. "

He sprang lightly on to the parapet of the verandah. Then, with onehand held behind him to poise himself, palm open backward, he leaptwith a bound to the road, and darted after her hurriedly. 

My heart stood still within me. That action revealed him. The back, the open hand, the gesture, the bend--I would have known themanywhere. With a horrible revulsion I recognised the truth. This wasmy father's murderer! This was Courtenay Ivor!

CHAPTER XVIII. 

MURDER WILL OUT

He was gone but for three minutes. Meanwhile, I buried my face in myburning hands, and cried to myself in unspeakable misery. 

For, horrible as it sounds to say so, I knew perfectly well now thatJack was Dr. Ivor: yet, in spite of that knowledge, I loved himstill. He was my father's murderer; and I couldn't help loving him!

It was that that filled up the cup of my misery to overflowing. Iloved the man well: and I must turn to denounce him. 

He came back, flushed and hot, expecting thanks for his pains. 

"Well, she'll get you the lemon, Una, " he said, panting. "I overtookher by the big tulip-tree. "

I gazed at him fixedly, taking my hands from my face, with the tearsstill wet on my burning cheek. 

"You've deceived me!" I cried sternly. "Jack, you've given me afalse name. I know who you are, now. You're no Jack at all. You'reCourtenay Ivor!"

He drew back, quite amazed. Yet he didn't seem thunderstruck. Notfear but surprise was the leading note on his features. 

"So you've found that out at last, Una!" he exclaimed, staring hardat me. "Then you remember me after all, darling! You know who I am. You haven't quite forgotten me. And you recall what has gone, doyou?"

I rose from the sofa, ill as I was, in my horror. 

"You dare to speak to me like that, sir!" I cried. "You, whom I'vetracked out to your hiding-place and discovered! You, whom I've comeacross the ocean to hunt down! You, whom I mean to give up this veryday to Justice! Let me go from your house at once! How dare you everbring me here? How dare you stand unabashed before the daughter ofthe man you so cruelly murdered?"

He drew back like one stung. 

"The daughter of the man I murdered!" he faltered out slowly, as ina turmoil of astonishment. "The man _I_ murdered! Oh, Una, is itpossible you've forgotten so much, and yet remember me myself? Ican't believe it, darling. Sit down, my child, and think. Surely, surely the rest will come back to you gradually. "

His calmness unnerved me. What could he mean by these words? Noactor on earth could dissemble like this. His whole manner wasutterly unlike the manner of a man just detected in a terriblecrime. He seemed rather to reproach me, indeed, than to crouch; tobe shocked and indignant. 

"Explain yourself, " I said coldly, in a very chilly voice. "Courtenay Ivor, I give you three minutes to explain. At the end ofthat time, if you can't exonerate yourself, I walk out of this houseto give you up, as I ought, to the arm of Justice!"

He looked at me, all pity, yet inexpressibly reproachful. 

"Oh, Una, " he cried, clasping his hands--those small white hands ofhis--Aunt Emma's hands--the murderer's hands--how had I neverbefore noticed them?--"and I, who have suffered so much for you! I, who have wrecked my whole life for you, ungrudgingly, willingly! I, who have sacrificed even Elsie's happiness and Elsie's future foryou! This is too, too hard! Una, Una, spare me!"

A strange trembling seized me. It was in my heart to rush forwardand clasp him to my breast. Murderer or no murderer, his look, hisvoice, cut me sharply to the heart. Words trembled on the tip of mytongue: "Oh, Jack, I love you!" But with a violent effort, Irepressed them sternly. This horrible revulsion seemed to tear me intwo. I loved him so much. Though till the moment of the discovery, Inever quite realised how deeply I loved him. 

"Courtenay Ivor, " I said slowly, steeling myself once more for ahard effort, "I knew who you were at once when I saw you poiseyourself on the parapet. Once before in my life I saw you like that, and the picture it produced has burned itself into the very fibreand marrow of my being. As long as I live, I can never get rid ofit. It was when you leapt from the window at The Grange, atWoodbury, after murdering my father!"

He started once more. 

"Una, " he said solemnly, in a very clear voice, "there's someterrible error somewhere. You're utterly mistaken about what tookplace that night. But oh, great heavens! how am I ever to explainthe misconception to YOU? If you still think thus, it would be cruelto undeceive you. I daren't tell you the whole truth. It would killyou! It would kill you!"

I drew myself up like a pillar of ice. 

"Go on, " I said, in a hard voice; for I saw he had something to say. "Don't mind for my heart. Tell me the truth. I can stand it. "

He hesitated for a minute or two. 

"I can't!" he cried huskily. "Dear Una, don't ask me! Won't youtrust me, without? Won't you believe me when I tell you, I never didit?"

"No, I can't, " I answered with sullen resolution, though my eyesbelied my words. "I can't disbelieve the evidence of my own senses. I SAW you escape that night. I see you still. I've seen you foryears. I KNOW it was you, and you only, who did it!"

He flung himself down in a chair, and let his arms drop listlessly. 

"Oh! what can I ever do to disillusion you?" he cried in despair. "Oh! what can I ever do? This is too, too terrible!"

I moved towards the door. 

"I'm going, " I said, with a gulp. "You've deceived me, Jack. You'velied to me. You have given me feigned names. You have decoyed me toyour house under false pretences. And I recognise you now. I knowyou in all your baseness. You're my father's murderer! Don't hope toescape by playing on my feelings. I'd deserve to be murdered myself, if I could act like that! I'm on my way to the police-office, togive you in custody on the charge of murdering Vivian Callingham atWoodbury!"

He jumped up again, all anxiety. 

"Oh, no, you mustn't walk!" he cried, laying his hand upon my arm. "Give me up, if you like; but wait till the buggy comes back, andElsie'll drive you round with me. You're not fit to go a step as youare at present. . . Oh! what shall I ever do, though. You're so weakand ill. Elsie'll never allow it. "

"Elsie'll never allow WHAT?" I asked; though I felt it was rathermore grotesque than undignified and inconsistent thus to parley andmake terms with my father's murderer. Though, to be sure, it wasJack, and I couldn't bear to refuse him. 

He kept his hand on my arm with an air of authority. 

"Una, my child, " he said, thrusting me back--and even at thatmoment of supreme horror, a thrill ran all through my body at histouch and his words--"you MUSTN'T go out of this house as you arethis minute. I refuse to allow it. I'm your doctor, and I forbid it. You're under my charge, and I won't let you stir. If I did, I'd beresponsible. "

He pushed me gently into a chair. 

"I gave you but one false name, " he said slowly--"the name ofCheriton. To be sure I, was never christened John, but I'm Jack tomy intimates. It was my nickname from a baby. Jack's what I'vealways been called at home--Jack's what, in the dear old days atTorquay, you always called me. But I saw if I let you know who I wasat once, there'd be no chance of recalling the past, and so savingyou from yourself. To save you, I consented to that one milddeception. It succeeded in bringing you here, and in keeping youhere till Elsie and I were once more what we'd always been to you. Imeant to tell you all in the end, when the right time came. Now, you've forced my hand, and I don't know how I can any longer refrainfrom telling you. "

"Telling me WHAT?" I said icily. "What do you mean by your words?Why all these dark hints? If you've anything to say, why not say itlike a man?"

For I loved him so much that in my heart of hearts, I half hopedthere might still be some excuse, some explanation. 

He looked at me solemnly. Then he leant back in his chair and drewhis hand across his brow. I could see now why I hadn't recognisedthat delicate hand before: white as it was by nature, hard work onthe farm had long bronzed and distorted it. But I saw also, for thefirst time, that the palm was scarred with cuts and rents--exactlylike Minnie Moore's, exactly like Aunt Emma's. 

"Una, " he began slowly, in a very puzzled tone, "if I could, I'dgive myself up and be tried, and be found guilty and executed foryour sake, sooner than cause you any further distress, or expose youto the shock of any more disclosures. But I can't do that, onElsie's account. Even if I decided to put Elsie to that shame anddisgrace--which would hardly be just, which would hardly be manly ofme--Elsie knows all, and Elsie'd never consent to it. She'd neverlet her brother be hanged for a crime of which (as she knows) he'sentirely innocent. And she'd tell out all in full court--every fact, every detail--which would be worse for you ten thousand times in theend than learning it here quietly. "

"Tell me all, " I said, growing stony, yet trembling from head tofoot. "Oh, Jack, "--I seized his hand, --"I don't know what you mean!But I somehow trust you. I want to know all. I can bearanything--anything--better than this suspense. You MUST tell me! YouMUST explain to me!"

"I will, " he said slowly, looking hard into my eyes, and feeling mypulse half unconsciously with his finger as he spoke. "Una darling, you must make up your mind now for a terrible shock. I won't tellyou in words, for you'd never believe it. I'll SHOW you who it wasthat fired the shot at Mr. Callingham. "

He moved over to the other side of the room, and unlocking drawerafter drawer, took a bundle of photographs from the inmost secretcabinet of a desk in the corner. 

"There, Una, " he said, selecting one of them and holding it upbefore my eyes. "Prepare yourself, darling. That's the person whopulled the trigger that night in the library!"

I looked at it and fell back with a deadly shriek of horror. It wasan instantaneous photograph. It represented a scene just before theone the Inspector gave me. And there, in its midst, I saw myself asa girl, with a pistol in my hand. The muzzle flashed and smoked. Iknew the whole truth. It was I myself who held the pistol and firedat my father!

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE REAL MURDERER

For some seconds I sat there, leaning back in my chair and gazingclose at that incredible, that accusing document. I knew it couldn'tlie: I knew it must be the very handiwork of unerring Nature. Thenslowly a recollection began to grow up in my mind. I knew of my ownmemory it was really true. I remembered it so, now, as in a glass, darkly. I remembered having stood, with the pistol in my hand, pointing it straight at the breast of the man with the long whitebeard whom they called my father. A new mental picture rose upbefore me like a vision. I remembered it all as something that oncereally occurred to me. 

Yet I remembered it, as I had long remembered the next scene in theseries, merely as so much isolated and unrelated fact, withoutconnection of any sort to link it to the events that preceded orfollowed it. It was _I_ who shot my father! I realised that now witha horrid gulp. But what on earth did I ever shoot him for?

And I had hunted down Jack for the crime I had committed myself! Ihad threatened to give him up for my own dreadful parricide!

After a minute, I rose, and staggered feebly to the door. I saw thepath of duty clear as daylight before me. 

"Where are you going?" Jack faltered out, watching me close withanxious eyes, lest I should stumble or faint. 

And I answered aloud, in a hollow voice:

"To the police-station, of course, --to give myself into custody forthe murder of my father. "

When I thought it was Jack, though I loved him better than I lovedmy own life, I would have given him up to justice as a sacred duty. Now I knew it was myself, how could I possibly do otherwise? Howcould I love my own life better than I loved dear Jack's, who hadgiven up everything to save me and protect me?

With a wild bound of horror, Jack sprang upon me at once. He seizedme bodily in his arms. He carried me back into the room withirresistible strength. I fought against him in vain. He laid me onthe sofa. He bent over me like a whirlwind and smothered me with hotkisses. 

"My darling, " he cried, "my darling, then this shock hasn't killedyou! It hasn't stunned you like the last! You're still your own dearself! You've still strength to think and plan exactly what one wouldexpect from you. Oh! Una, my Una, you must wait and hear all. Whenyou've learned HOW it happened, you won't wish to act so rashly. "

I struggled to free myself, though his arms were hard and close likea strong man's around me. 

"Let me go, Jack!" I cried feebly, trying to tear myself from hisgrasp. "I love you better than I love my own life. If I would havegiven YOU up, how much more must I give up myself, now I know it wasI who really did it!"

He held me down by main force. He pinned me to the sofa. I supposeit's because I'm a woman, and weak, and all that--but I liked eventhen to feel how strong and how big he was, and how feeble I wasmyself, like a child in his arms. And I resisted on purpose, just tofeel him hold me. Somehow, I couldn't realize, after all, that I wasindeed a murderess. It didn't seem possible. I couldn't believe itwas in me. 

"Jack, " I said slowly, giving way at last, and letting him hold medown with his small strong hands and slender iron wrist, "tell me, if you will, how I came to do it. I'll sit here quite still, if onlyyou'll tell me. Am I really a murderess?"

Jack recoiled like one shot. 

"YOU a murderess, my spotless Una!" he exclaimed, all aghast. "Ifanyone else on earth but you had just asked such a thing in mypresence, I'd have leapt at the fellow's throat, and held him downtill I choked him!"

"But I did it!" I cried wildly. "I remember now, I did it. It allcomes back to me at last. I fired at him, just so. I aimed theloaded pistol point-blank at his heart, I can hear the din in myears. I can see the flash at the muzzle. And then I flung down thepistol--like this--at my feet: and darkness came on; and I forgoteverything. Why, Dr. Marten knew that much! I remember now, he toldme he'd formed a very strong impression, from the nature of thewound and the position of the various objects on the floor of theroom, who it was that did it! He must have seen it was _I_ who flungdown the pistol. "

Jack gazed at me in suspense. 

"He's a very good friend of yours, then, " he murmured, "that Dr. Marten. For he never said a word of all that at the inquest. "

"But I must give myself up!" I cried, in a fever of penitence forwhat that other woman who once was ME had done. "Oh, Jack, do letme! It's hateful to know I'm a murderess and to go unpunished. It'shateful to draw back from the fate I'd have imposed on another. I'dlike to be hanged for it. I want to be hanged. It's the onlypossible way to appease one's conscience. "

And yet, though I said it, I felt all the time it wasn't really I, but that other strange girl who once lived at The Grange and lookedexactly like me. I remember it, to be sure; but it was in my OtherState: and, so far as my moral responsibility was concerned, myOther State and I were two different people. 

For I knew in my heart I couldn't commit a murder. 

Jack rose without a word, and fetched me in some brandy. 

"Drink this, " he said calmly, in his authoritative medical tone;"drink this before you say another sentence. "

And, obedient to his order, I took it up and drank it. 

Then he sat down beside me, and took my hand in his, and with verygentle words began to reason and argue with me. 

He was glad I'd struggled, he said, because that broke the firstforce of the terrible shock for me. Action was always good for onein any great crisis. It gave an outlet for the pent-up emotions, toosuddenly let loose with explosive force, and kept them from turninginward and doing serious harm, as mine had done on that horriblenight of the accident. He called it always the accident, I noticed, and never the murder. That gave me fresh hope. Could I really afterall have fired unintentionally? But no; when I came to lookinward, --to look backward on my past state, --I was conscious all thetime of some strong and fierce resentment smouldering deep in myheart at the exact moment of firing. However it might have happened, I was angry with the man with the long white beard: I fired at himhastily, it is true, but with malice prepense and deliberate intentto wound and hurt him. 

Jack went on, however, undeterred, in a low and quiet voice, soothing my hand with his as he spoke, and very kind and gentle. Myspirit rebelled at the thought that I could ever for one moment haveimagined him a murderer. I said so in one wild burst. Jack held myhand, and still reasoned with me. I like a man's reasoning; it's socalm and impartial. It seems to overcome one by its mere display ofstrength. If I'd changed my mind once, Jack said, I might change itagain, when further evidence on the point was again forthcoming. Imustn't give myself up to the police till I understood much more. IfI did, I would commit a very grave mistake. There were reasons thathad led to the firing of the shot. Very grave reasons too. Couldn'tI restore and reconstruct them, now I knew the last stage of theterrible history? If possible, he'd rather I should arrive at themby myself than that he should tell me. 

I cast my mind back all in vain. 

"No, Jack, " I said trustfully. "I can't remember anything one bitlike that. I can remember forward, sometimes, but never backwards. Ican remember now how I flung down the pistol, and how the servantsburst in. But not a word, not an item, of what went before. That'sall a pure blank to me. "

And then I went on to tell him in very brief outline how the firstthing I could recollect in all my life was the Australian scene withthe big blue-gum-trees; and how that had been recalled to me by thepicture at Jane's; and how one scene in that way had graduallysuggested another; and how I could often think ahead from a givenfact but never go back behind it and discover what led up to it. 

Jack drew his hand over his chin and reflected silently. 

"That's odd, " he said, after a pause. "Yet very comprehensible. Imight almost have thought of that before: might have arrived at iton general principles. Psychologically and physiologically it'sexactly what one would have expected from the nature of memory. Andyet it never occurred to me. Set up the train of thought in theorder in which it originally presented itself, and the links mayreadily restore themselves in successive series. Try to trace itbackward in the inverse order, and the process is very much moredifficult and involved. --Well, we'll try things just so with you, Una. We'll begin by reconstructing your first life as far as we canfrom the very outset, with the aid of these stray hints of yours;and then we'll see whether we can get you to remember all your pastup to the day of the accident more easily. "

I gazed up at him with gratitude. 

"Oh, Jack, " I said, trembling, "in spite of this shock, I believe Ican do it now. I believe I can remember. The scales are falling frommy eyes. I'm becoming myself again. What you've said and what you'veshown me seems to have broken down a veil. I feel as if I couldreconstruct all now, when once the key's suggested to me. "

He smiled at me encouragingly. Oh, how could I ever have doubtedhim?

"That's right, darling, " he answered. "I should have expected asmuch, indeed. For now for the very first time since the accidentyou've got really at the other side of the great blank in yourmemory. "

I felt so happy, though I knew I was a murderess. I didn't mind nowwhether I was hanged or not. To love Jack and be loved by him wasquite enough for me. When he called me "darling, " I was in theseventh heavens. It sounded so familiar. I knew he must have calledme so, often and often before, in the dim dead past that was justbeginning to recur to me. 

CHAPTER XX. 

THE STRANGER FROM THE SEA

I held his hand tight. It was so pleasant to know I could love himnow with a clear conscience, even if I had to give myself up to thepolice to-morrow. And indeed, being a woman, I didn't really muchcare whether they took me or not, if only I could love Jack, andknow Jack loved me. 

"You must tell me everything--this minute--Jack, " I said, clingingto him like a child. "I can't bear this suspense. Begin telling meat once. You'll do me more harm than good if you keep me waiting anylonger. "

Jack took instinctively a medical view of the situation. 

"So I think, my child, " he said, looking lovingly at me. "Yournerves are on the rack, and will be the better for unstringing. Oh, Una, it's such a comfort that you know at last who I am! It's such acomfort that I'm able to talk to you to-day just as we two used totalk four years ago in Devonshire!"

"Did I love you then, Jack?" I whispered, nestling still closer tohim, in spite of my horror. Or rather, my very horror made me feelmore acutely than ever the need for protection. I was no longeralone in the world. I had a man to support me. 

"You told me so, darling, " he answered, smoothing my hair with hishand. "Have you forgotten all about it? Doesn't even that come back?Can't you remember it now, when I've told you who I am and how itall happened?"

I shook my head. 

"All cloudy still, " I replied, vaguely. "Some dim sense offamiliarity, perhaps, --as when people say they have a feeling ofhaving lived all this over somewhere else before, --but nothing morecertain, nothing more definite. "

"Then I must begin at the beginning, " Jack answered, bracing himselffor his hard task, "and reconstruct your whole life for you, as faras I know it, from your very childhood. I'm particularly anxious youshould not merely be TOLD what took place, but should remember thepast. There are gaps in my own knowledge I want you to eke out. There are places I want you to help me myself over. And besides, it'll be more satisfactory to yourself to remember than to be toldit. "

I leaned back, almost exhausted. Incredible as it may seem to you, in spite of that awful photograph, I couldn't really believe even soI had killed my father. And yet I knew very well now that Jack, atleast, hadn't done it. That was almost enough. But not quite. Myhead swam round in terror. I waited and longed for Jack to explainthe whole thing to me. 

"You remember, " he said, watching me close, "that when you lived asa very little girl in Australia you had a papa who seems differentto you still from the papa in your later childish memories?"

"I remember it very well, " I replied. "It came back to me on theSarmatian. I think of him always now as the papa in the loose whitelinen coat. The more I dwell on him, the more does he come out to meas a different man from the other one--the father. . . I shot at TheGrange, at Woodbury. The father that lives with me in thatineffaceable Picture. "

"He WAS a different man, " Jack answered, with a sudden burst, as ifhe knew all my story. "Una, I may as well relieve your mind all atonce on that formidable point. You shot that man"--he pointed to thewhite-bearded person in the photograph, --"but it was not parricide:it was not even murder. It was under grave provocation. . . In morethan self-defence. . . And he was NOT your father. "

"Not my father!" I cried, clasping my hands and leaning forward inmy profound suspense. "But I killed him all the same! Oh, Jack, howterrible!"

"You must quiet yourself, my child, " he said, still soothing meautomatically. "I want your aid in this matter. You must listen tome calmly, and bring your mind to bear on all I say to you. "

Then he began with a regular history of my early life, which cameback to me as fast as he spoke, scene by scene and year by year, inlong and familiar succession. I remembered everything, sometimesonly when he suggested it; but sometimes also, before he said thewords, my memory outran his tongue, and I put in a recollection ortwo with my own tongue as they recurred to me under the stimulus ofthis new birth of my dead nature. I recalled my early days in thefar bush in Australia; my journey home to England on the big steamerwith mamma; the way we travelled about for years from place to placeon the Continent. I remembered how I had been strictly enjoined, too, never to speak of baby; and how my father used to watch mymother just as closely as he watched me, always afraid, as itappeared to me, she should make some verbal slip or let out somegreat secret in an unguarded moment. He seemed relieved, Irecollected now, when my poor mother died: he grew less strict withme then, but as far as I could judge, though he was careful of myhealth, he never really loved me. 

Then Jack reminded me further of other scenes that came much laterin my forgotten life. He reminded me of my trip to Torquay, where Ifirst met him: and all at once the whole history of my old visits tothe Moores came back like a flood to me. The memory seemed toinundate and overwhelm my brain. They were the happiest time of alllife, those delightful visits, when I met Jack and fell in love withhim, and half confided my love to my Cousin Minnie. Strange to say, though at Torquay itself I'd forgotten it all, in that littleCanadian house, with Jack by my side to recall it, it rushed backlike a wave upon me. I'd fallen in love with Jack without myfather's knowledge or consent; and I knew very well my father wouldnever allow me to marry him. He had ideas of his own, my father, about the sort of person I ought to marry: and I half suspected inmy heart of hearts he meant if possible always to keep me at homesingle to take care of him and look after him. I didn't know, asyet, he had sufficient reasons of his own for desiring me to remainfor ever unmarried. 

I remembered, too, that I never really loved my father. His naturewas hard, cold, reserved, unsympathetic. I only feared and obeyedhim. At times, my own strong character came out, I remembered, and Idefied him to his face, defied him openly. Then there were scenes inthe house, dreadful scenes, too hateful to dwell upon: and theservants came up to my room at the end and comforted me. 

So, step by step, Jack reminded me of everything in my own pastlife, up to the very night of the murder, from which my Second Statedated. I'd come back from Torquay a week or two before, very fullindeed of Jack, and determined at all costs, sooner or later, tomarry him. But though I had kept all quiet, papa had suspected myliking on the day of the Berry Pomeroy athletics, and had forbiddenme to see Jack, or to write to him, or to have anything further tosay to him. He was determined, he told me, whoever I married, Ishouldn't at least marry a beggarly doctor. All that I remembered;and also how, in spite of the prohibition, I wrote letters to Jack, but could receive none in return--lest my father should see them. 

And still, the central mystery of the murder was no nearer solution. I held my breath in terror. Had I really any sort of justificationin killing him?

Dimly and instinctively, as Jack went on, a faint sense ofresentment and righteous indignation against the man with the whitebeard rose up vaguely in my mind by slow degrees. I knew I had beenangry with him, I knew I had defied him, but how or why as yet Iknew not. 

Then Jack suddenly paused, and began in a different voice a new partof his tale. It was nothing I remembered or could possibly remember, he said; but it was necessary to the comprehension of what cameafter, and would help me to recall it. About a week after I leftTorquay, it seemed, Jack was in his consulting-room at Babbicombeone day, having just returned from a very long bicycle ride--for hewas a first-rate cyclist, --when the servant announced a newpatient; and a very worn-out old man came in to visit him. 

The man had a ragged grey beard and scanty white hair; he was cladin poor clothes, and had tramped on foot all the way from London toBabbicombe, where Jack used to practice. But Jack saw at once underthis rough exterior he had the voice and address of a cultivatedgentleman, though he was so broken down by want and long sufferingand exposure and illness that he looked like a beggar just let loosefrom the workhouse. 

I held my breath as Jack showed me the poor old man's photograph. Itwas a portrait taken after death--for Jack attended him to the endthrough a fatal illness;--and it showed a face thin and worn, andmuch lined by unspeakable hardships. But I burst out crying at oncethe very moment I looked at it. For a second or two, I couldn't saywhy: I suppose it was instinct. Blood is thicker than water, theytell us; and I have the intuition of kindred very strong in me, Ibelieve. But at any rate, I cried silently, with big hot tears, while I looked at that dead face of silent suffering, as I never hadcried over the photograph of the respectable-looking man who laydead on the floor of the library, and whom I was always taught toconsider my father. Then it came back to me, why. . . I gazed at itand grew faint. I clutched Jack's arm for support. I knew what itmeant now. The poor worn old man who lay dead on the bed with thatlook of mute agony on his features--was my first papa: the papa inthe loose white linen coat: the one I remembered with childlike loveand trustfulness in my earliest babyish Australian recollections!

I couldn't mistake the face. It was burnt into my brain now. Thiswas he, though much older and sadder, and more scarred and lined byage and weather. It was my very first papa. My own papa. I criedsilently still. I couldn't bear to look at it. Then the real truthbroke upon me once more. This, and this alone, was in very deed myone real father!

I seized the faded photograph and pressed it to my lips. 

"Oh, I know him!" I cried wildly. "It's my father! My father!"

Some minutes passed before Jack could go on with his story. Thisrush of emotions was too much for me for a while. I could hardlyhear him or attend to him, so deeply did it stir me. 

At last I calmed down, still holding that pathetic photograph on thetable before me. 

"Tell me all about him, " I murmured, sobbing. "For, Jack, I remembernow, he was so good and kind, and I loved him--I loved him. "

Jack went on with his story, trying to soothe me and reassure me. The old man introduced himself by very cautious degrees as a personin want, not so much of money, though of that to be sure he hadnone, as of kindness and sympathy in a very great sorrow. He was ashipwrecked mariner, in a sense: shipwrecked on the sea of Life andon the open Pacific as well. But once he had been a clergyman, and aman of education, position, reputation, fortune. 

Gradually as he went on Jack began to grasp at the truth of thiscurious tale. The worn and battered stranger had but lately landedin London from a sailing vessel which had brought him over from aremote Pacific islet: not a tropical islet of the kind with whosepalms and parrots we are all so familiar, but a cold and snowy rock, away off far south, among the frosts and icebergs, near theAntarctic continent. There for twenty long years that unhappy manhad lived by himself a solitary life. 

I started at the sound. 

"For twenty years!" I exclaimed. "Oh, Jack, you must be wrong; forhow could that be? I was only eighteen when all this happened. Howcould my real father have been twenty years away from me, when I wasonly eighteen, and I remember him so perfectly?"

Jack looked at me and shook his head. 

"You've much to learn yet, Una, " he answered. "The story's a longone. You were NOT eighteen but twenty-two at the time. You've beendeliberately misled as to your own age all along. You developedlate, and were always short for your real years, not tall andprecocious as we all of us imagined. But you were four years olderthan Mr. Callingham pretended. You're twenty-six now, nottwenty-two as you think. Wait, and in time you'll hear all aboutit. "

He went on with his story. I listened, spell-bound. The unhappyman explained to Jack how he had been wrecked on the voyage, andescaped on a raft with one other passenger: how they had drifted farsouth, before waves and current, till they were cast at last on thiswretched island: how they remained there for a month or two, pickingup a precarious living on roots and berries and eggs of sea-birds:and how at last, one day, he had come back from hunting limpets andsea-urchins on the shore of a lonely bay--to find, to hisamazement, his companion gone, and himself left alone on thatdesolate island. His fellow-castaway, he knew then, had deceived anddeserted him!

There was no room, indeed, to doubt the treachery of the wretchedbeing who had so basely treated him. As he looked, a ship under fullsail stood away to northward. In vain the unhappy man made wildsignals from the shore with his tattered garments. No notice wastaken of them. His companion must deliberately have suppressed theother's existence, and pretended to be alone by himself on theisland. 

"And his name?" Jack asked of the poor old man, horrified. 

The stranger answered without a moment's pause:

"His name, if you want it--was Vivian Callingham. "

"And yours?" Jack continued, as soon as he could recover from hisfirst shock of horror. 

"And mine, " the poor castaway replied, "is Richard Wharton. "

As Jack told me those words, another strange thrill ran through me. 

"Richard Wharton was the name of mamma's first husband. Then I'm nota Callingham at all!" I cried, unable to take it all in at first inits full complexity. "I'm really a Wharton!"

Jack nodded his head in assent. 

"Yes, you're really a Wharton, " he said. "You're the baby that died, as we all were told. Your true Christian name's Mary. But, Una, youwere always Una to all of us in England; and though the real UnaCallingham died when you were a little girl of three or four yearsold, you'll be Una always now to Elsie and me. We can't think of youas other than we've always called you. "

Then he went on to explain to me how the stranger had landed inLondon, alone and friendless, twenty years later, from a passingAustralian merchant vessel which had picked him up on the island. All those years he had waited, and fed himself on eggs of penguins. He landed by himself, the crew having given him a suit of oldclothes, and subscribed to find him in immediate necessaries. Hebegan to inquire cautiously in London about his wife and family. Atfirst, he could learn little or nothing; for nobody remembered him, and he feared to ask too openly, a sort of Enoch Arden terrorrestraining him from proclaiming his personality till he knewexactly what had happened in his long absence. But bit by bit, hefound out at last that his wife had married again, and was now longdead: and that the man she had married was Vivian Callingham, hisown treacherous companion on the Crozet Islands. As soon as helearned that, the full depth of the man's guilt burst upon him likea thunderbolt. Richard Wharton understood now why Vivian Callinghamhad left him alone on those desert rocks, and sailed away in theship without telling the captain of his fellow-castaway's plight. Hesaw the whole vile plot the man had concocted at once, and the stepshe had taken to carry it into execution. 

Vivian Callingham, whom I falsely thought my father, had gone backto Australia with pretended news of Richard Wharton's death. He hadsought my widowed mother in her own home up country, and told her alying tale of his devotion to her husband in his dying moments onthat remote ocean speck in the far Southern Pacific. By this storyhe ingratiated himself. He knew she was rich: he knew she was worthmarrying: and to marry her, he had left my own real father, RichardWharton, to starve and languish for twenty years among rocks andsea-fowl on a lonely island!

My blood ran cold at such a tale of deadly treachery. I rememberednow to have heard some small part of it before. But much of it, asJack told it to me, was quite new and unexpected. No wonder I hadturned in horror that night from the man I long believed to be myown father, when I learned by what vile and cruelly treacherousmeans he had succeeded in imposing his supposed relationship uponme! But still, all this brought me no nearer the real question ofquestions--why did I shoot him?

CHAPTER XXI. 

THE PLOT UNRAVELS ITSELF

As Jack went on unfolding that strange tale of fraud and heartlesswrong, my interest every moment grew more and more absorbing. But Ican't recall it now exactly as Jack told me it. I can only give youthe substance of that terrible story. 

When Richard Wharton first learned of his wife's second marriageduring his own lifetime to that wicked wretch who had ousted andsupplanted him, he believed also, on the strength of VivianCallingham's pretences, that his own daughter had died in herbabyhood in Australia. He fancied, therefore, that no person of hiskin remained alive at all, and that he might proceed to denounce andpunish Vivian Callingham. With that object in view, he tramped downall the way from London to Torquay, to make himself known to hiswife's relations, the Moores, and to their cousin, Courtenay Ivor ofBabbicombe--my Jack, as I called him. For various reasons of hisown, he called first on Jack, and proceeded to detail to him thisterrible family story. 

At first hearing, Jack could hardly believe such a tale was true--ofhis Una's father, as he still thought Vivian Callingham. But astrange chance happened to reveal a still further complication. Itcame out in this way. I had given Jack a recent photograph of myselfin fancy dress, which hung up over his mantelpiece. As theweather-worn visitor's eye fell on the picture, he started and grewpale. 

"Why, that's her!" he cried with a sudden gasp. "That's mydaughter--Mary Wharton!"

Well, naturally enough Jack thought, to begin with, this was a meremistake on his strange visitor's part. 

"That's her half-sister, " he said, "Una Callingham--your wife'schild by her second marriage. She may be like her, no doubt, ashalf-sisters often are. But Mary Wharton, I know, died some eighteenyears ago or so, when Una was quite a baby, I believe. I've heardall about it, because, don't you see, I'm engaged to Una. "

The poor wreck of a clergyman, however, shook his head with profoundconviction. He knew better than that. 

"Oh no, " he said decisively: "that's my child, Mary Wharton. Evenafter all these years, I couldn't possibly be mistaken. Blood isthicker than water: I'd know her among ten thousand. She'd be justthat age now, too. I see the creature's vile plot. His daughter diedyoung, and he's palmed off my Mary as his own child, to keep hermoney in his hands. But never mind the money. Thank Heaven, she'salive! That's her! That's my Mary!"

The plot seemed too diabolical and too improbable for anybody tobelieve. Jack could hardly think it possible when his new friendtold him. But the stranger persisted so--it's hard for me even tothink of him as quite really my father--that Jack at last broughtout two or three earlier photographs I'd given him some time before;and his visitor recognised them at once, in all their stages, as hisown daughter. This roused Jack's curiosity. He determined to huntthe matter up with his unknown connection. And he hunted it upthenceforward with deliberate care, till he proved every word of it. 

Meanwhile, the poor broken-down man, worn out with his long trampand his terrible emotions, fell ill almost at once, in Jack's ownhouse, and became rapidly so feeble that Jack dared not question himfurther. The return to civilisation was more fatal than his longsolitary banishment. At the end of a week he died, leaving on Jack'smind a profound conviction that all he had said was true, and that Iwas really Richard Wharton's daughter, not Vivian Callingham's. 

"For a week or two I made inquiries, Una, " Jack said to me as we satthere, --"inquiries which I won't detail to you in full just now, butwhich gradually showed me the truth of the poor soul's belief. Whatyou yourself told me just now chimes in exactly with what Idiscovered elsewhere, by inquiry and by letters from Australia. Thebaby that died was the real Una Callingham. Shortly after its death, your stepfather and your mother left the colony. All your realfather's money had been bequeathed to his child: and your mother'salso was settled on you. Mr. Callingham saw that if your motherdied, and you lived and married, he himself would be deprived of thefortune for which he had so wickedly plotted. So he made up anotherplot even more extraordinary and more diabolical still than thefirst. He decided to pretend it was Mary Wharton that died, and topalm you off on the world as his own child, Una Callingham. For ifMary Wharton died, the property at once became absolutely yourmother's, and she could will it away to her husband or anyone elseshe chose to. "

"But baby was so much younger than I!" I cried, going back on myrecollections once more. "How could he ever manage to make the datescome right again?"

"Quite true, " Jack answered; "the baby was younger than you. Butyour step-father--I've no other name by which I can call him--made aclever plan to set that straight. He concealed from the people inAustralia which child had been ill, and he entered her death as MaryWharton. Then, to cover the falsification, he left Melbourne atonce, and travelled about for some years on the Continent inout-of-the-way places till all had been forgotten. You went forthupon the world as Una Callingham, with your true personality as MaryWharton all obscured even in your own memory. Fortunately for yourfalse father's plot, you were small for your age, and developedslowly: he gave out, on the contrary, that you were big for youryears and had outgrown yourself, Australian-wise, both in wisdom andstature. "

"But my mother!" I exclaimed, appalled. 'How could she ever consentto such a wicked deception?"

"Mr. Callingham had your mother completely under his thumb, " Jackanswered with promptitude. "She couldn't call her soul her own, yourpoor mother--so I've heard: he cajoled her and terrified her tillshe didn't dare to oppose him. Poor shrinking creature, she wasafraid of her life to do anything except as he bade her. He musthave persuaded her first to acquiesce passively in this hatefulplot, and then must have terrified her afterwards into fullcompliance by threats of exposure. "

"He was a very unhappy man himself, " I put in, casting back. "Hismoney did him no good. I can remember now how gloomy and moody hewas often, at The Grange. "

"Quite true, " Jack replied. "He lived in perpetual fear of your realfather's return, or of some other breakdown to his complicatedsystem of successive deceptions. He never had a happy minute in hiswhole life, I believe. Blind terrors surrounded him. He was afraidof everything, and afraid of everybody. Only his scientific workseemed ever to give him any relief. There, he became a free man. Hethrew himself into that, heart and soul, on purpose, I fancy, because it absorbed him while he was at it, and prevented him forthe time being from thinking of his position. "

"And how did you find it all out?" I asked eagerly, anxious to geton to the end. 

"Well, that's long to tell, " Jack replied. "Too long for onesitting. I won't trouble you with it now. Discrepancies in facts anddates, and inquiries among servants both in England and in Victoria, first put me upon the track. But I said nothing at the time of mysuspicions to anyone. I waited till I could appeal to the man's ownconscience with success, as I hoped. And then, besides, I hardlyknew how to act for the best. I wanted to marry you; and therefore, as far as was consistent with justice and honour, I wished to spareyour supposed father a complete exposure. "

"But why didn't you tell the police?" I asked. 

"Because I had really nothing definite in any way to go upon. Realise the position to yourself, and you'll see how difficult itwas for me. Mr. Callingham suspected I was paying you attentions. Clearly, under those circumstances, it was to my obvious interestthat you should get possession of all his property. Any claims Imight make for you would, therefore, be naturally regarded withsuspicion. The shipwrecked man had told nobody but myself. I hadn'teven an affidavit, a death-bed statement. All rested upon his word, and upon mine as retailing it. He was dead, and there was nothingbut my narrative for what he told me. The story itself was tooimprobable to be believed by the police on such dubious evidence. Ididn't even care to try. I wanted to make your step-father confess:and I waited for that till I could compel confession. "

CHAPTER XXII. 

MY MEMORY RETURNS

At last my chance came, " Jack went on. "I'd found out almosteverything; not, of course, exactly by way of legal proof, but to myown entire satisfaction: and I determined to lay the matterdefinitely at once before Mr. Callingham. So I took a holiday for afortnight, to go bicycling in the Midlands I told my patients; and Ifixed my head-quarters at Wrode, which, as you probably remember, istwenty miles off from Woodbury. 

"It was important for my scheme I should catch Mr. Callingham alone. I had no idea of entrapping him. I wanted to work upon hisconscience and induce him to confess. My object was rather to movehim to remorse and restitution than to terrify or surprise him. 

"So on the day of the accident--call it murder, if you will--I rodeover on my machine, unannounced, to The Grange to see him. You knewwhere I was staying, you recollect--"

At the words, a burst of memory came suddenly over me. 

"Oh yes!" I cried. "I remember. It was at the Wilsons', at Wrode. Iwrote over there to tell you we were going to dine alone at six thatevening, as papa had got his electric apparatus home from hisinstrument-maker, and was anxious to try his experiments early. You'd written to me privately--a boy brought the note--that youwanted to have an hour's talk alone with papa. I thought it wasabout ME, and I was, oh, ever so nervous!"

For it all came back to me now, as clear as yesterday. 

Jack looked at me hard. 

"I'm glad you remember that, dear, " he said. "Now, Una, do try toremember all you can as I go along with my story. . . Well, I rodeover alone, never telling anybody at Wrode where I was going, norgiving your step-father any reason of any sort to expect me. Itrusted entirely to finding him busy with his new invention. When Ireached The Grange, I came up the drive unperceived, and looking inat the library window, saw your father alone there. He was potteringover his chemicals. That gave me the clue. I left my bicycle underthe window, tilted up against the wall, and walked in withoutringing, going straight to the library. Nobody saw me come: nobodysaw me return, except one old lady on the road, who seemed to haveforgotten all about it by the time of the inquest. "

(I nodded and gave a start. I knew that must have been Aunt Emma. )

"Except yourself, Una, no human soul on earth ever seemed to suspectme. And that wasn't odd; for you and your father, and perhaps MinnieMoore, were the only people in the world who ever knew I was in lovewith you or cared for you in any way. "

"Go on, " I said, breathless. "And you went into the library. "

"I went into the library, " Jack continued, "where I found yourfather, just returned from enjoying his cigar on the lawn. He wasalone in the room--"

"No, no!" I cried eagerly, putting in my share now; for I had a partin the history. "He WASN'T alone, Jack, though you thought him so atthe time. I remember all, at last. It comes back to me like a flash. Oh, heavens, how it comes back to me! Jack, Jack, I remember to-dayevery word, every syllable of it!"

He gazed at me in surprise. 

"Then tell me yourself, Una!" he exclaimed. "How did you come to bethere? For I knew you were there at last; but till you fired thepistol, I hadn't the faintest idea you had heard or seen anything. Tell me all about it, quick! There comes in MY mystery. "

In one wild rush of thought the whole picture rose up like a visionbefore me. 

"Why, Jack, " I cried, "there was a screen, a little screen in thealcove! You remember the alcove at the west end of the room. It wasso small a screen, you'd hardly have thought it could hide me; butit did--it did--and all, too, by accident. I'd gone in there afterdinner, not much thinking where I went, and was seated on the floorby the little alcove window, reading a book by the twilight. It wasa book papa told me I wasn't to read, and I took it trembling fromthe shelves, and was afraid he'd scold me--for you know how stern hewas. And I never was allowed to go alone into the library. But I gotinterested in my book, and went on reading. So when he came in, Iwent on sitting there very still, with the book hidden under myskirt, for fear he should scold me. I thought perhaps before longpapa'd go out for a second, to get some plates for his photographyor something, and then I could slip away and never be noticed. Thebig window towards the garden was open, you remember, and I meant tojump out of it--as you did afterwards. It wasn't very high; andthough the book was only The Vicar of Wakefield, he'd forbidden meto read it, and I was dreadfully afraid of him. "

"Then you were there all the time?" Jack cried interrogatively. "Andyou heard our conversation--our whole conversation?"

"I was there all the time, Jack, " I cried, in a fever of exaltation:"and I heard every word of it! It comes back to me now with avividness like yesterday. I see the room before my eyes. I rememberevery syllable: I could repeat every sentence of it. "

Jack drew a deep sigh of intense relief. 

"Thank God for that!" he exclaimed, with profound gratitude. "ThenI'm saved, and you're saved. We can both understand one another inthat case. We know how it all happened!"

"Perfectly, " I answered. "I know all now. As I sat there andcowered, I heard a knock at the door, and before papa could answer, you entered hastily. Papa looked round, I could hear, and saw who itwas in a second. 

"'Oh, it's you!' he said, coldly. 'It's you, Dr. Ivor. And pray, sir, what do you want here this evening?'"

"Go on!" Jack cried, intensely relieved, I could feel. "Let me seehow much more you can remember, Una. "

"So you shut the door softly and said:

"'Yes, it's I, Mr. Callingham, '" I continued all aglow, and lookinginto his eyes for confirmation. "'And I've come to tell you a factthat may surprise you. Prepare for strange news. Richard Wharton hasreturned to England!'

"I knew Richard Wharton was mamma's first husband, who was deadbefore I was born, as I'd always been told: and I sat there aghastat the news: it was so sudden, so crushing. I'd heard he'd beenwrecked, and I thought he'd come to life again; but as yet I didn'tsuspect what was all the real meaning of it. 

"But papa drew back, I could hear, in a perfect frenzy of rage, astonishment, and terror. 

"'Richard Wharton!' he hissed out between his teeth, springing awaylike one stung. 'Richard Wharton come back! You liar! You sneak!He's dead this twenty years! You're trying to frighten me. '

"I never meant to overhear your conversation. But at that, it was sostrange, I drew back and cowered even closer. I was afraid of papa'svoice. I was afraid of his rage. He spoke just like a man who wasready to murder you. 

"Then you began to talk with papa about strange things thatastonished me--strange things that I only half understood just then, but that by the light of what you've told me to-day I quiteunderstand now--the history of my real father. 

"'I'm no liar, ' you answered. 'Richard Wharton has come back. And bythe aid of what he's disclosed, I know the whole truth. The girl youcall your daughter, and whose money you've stolen, is not yours atall. She's Richard Wharton's daughter Mary!'

"Papa staggered back a pace or two, and came quite close to thescreen. I cowered behind it in alarm. I could see he was terrified. For a minute or two you talked with him, and urged him to confess. Bit by bit, as you went on, he recovered his nerve, and began tobluster. He didn't deny what you said: he saw it was no use: he justsneered and prevaricated. 

"As I listened to his words, I saw he admitted it all. A greathorror came over me. Then my life was one long lie! He was never myfather. He had concocted a vile plot. He had held me in this slaveryso many years to suit his own purposes. He had crushed my mother todeath, and robbed me of my birthright. Even before that night, Inever loved him. I thought it very wicked of me, but I never couldlove him. As he spoke to you and grew cynical, I began to loathe anddespise him. I can't tell you how great a comfort it was to me toknow--to hear from his own lips I was not that man's daughter. 

"At last, after many recriminations, he looked across at you, andsaid, half laughing, for he was quite himself again by that time:

"'This is all very fine, Courtenay Ivor--all very fine in its way;but how are you going to prove it? that's the real question. Do youthink any jury in England will believe, on your unsupported oath, such a cock-and-bull story? Do you think, even if Richard Wharton'scome back, and you've got him on your side, I can't cross-examineall the life out of his body?'

"At that you said gravely--wanting to touch his conscience, Isuppose:--

"'Richard Wharton's come back, but you can't cross-examine him. ForRichard Wharton died some six or eight weeks since at my cottage atBabbicombe, after revealing to me all this vile plot against himselfand his daughter. '

"Then papa drew back with a loud laugh--a hateful laugh like ademon's. I can't help calling him papa still, though it pains meeven to think of him. That loud laugh rings still in my ears to thisday. It was horrible, diabolical, like a wild beast's in triumph. 

"'You fool!' he said, with a sneer. 'And you come here to tell methat! You infernal idiot! You come here to put yourself in my powerlike this! Courtenay Ivor, I always knew you were an ass, but Ididn't ever know you were quite such a born idiot of a fellow asthat. Hold back there, you image!' With a rapid dart, before youcould see what he was doing, he passed a wire round your body andthrust two knobs into your hands. 'You're in my power now!' heexclaimed. 'You can't move or stir!'

"I saw at once what he'd done. He'd pinned you to the spot with thehandles of his powerful electric apparatus. It was so strong that itwould hold one riveted to the spot in pain. You couldn't let go. Youcould hardly even speak or cry aloud for help. He had pinned youdown irresistibly. I thought he meant to murder you. 

"Yet I was too terrified, even so, to scream aloud for the servants. I only crouched there, rooted, and wondered what next would happen. 

"He went across to the door and turned the key in it. Then he openedthe cabinet and took out some things there. It was growing quitedusk, and I could hardly see them. He returned with them where youstood, struggling in vain to set yourself free. His voice was ashard as adamant now. He spoke slowly and distinctly, in a voice likea fiend's. Oh, Jack, no wonder that scene took away my reason!"

"And you can remember what he said next, Una?" Jack asked, followingme eagerly. 

"Yes, I can remember what he said next, " I went on. "He stood overyou threateningly. I could see then the thing he held in his righthand was a loaded revolver. In his left was a bottle, a smallmedical phial. 

"'If you stir, I'll shoot you, ' he said; 'I'll shoot you like a dog!You fool, you've sealed your own fate! What an idiot to let me knowRichard Wharton's dead! Now, hear your fate! Nobody saw you comeinto this house to-night. Nobody shall see you leave. Look here, sir, at this bottle. It's chloroform: do you understand?Chloroform--chloroform--chloroform! I shall hold it to yournose--so. I shall stifle you quietly--no blood, no fuss, no nastymess of any sort. And when I'm done, --do you see these flasks?--Ican reduce your damned carcase to a pound of ashes with chemicals inhalf-an-hour! You've found out too much. But you've mistaken yourman! Courtenay Ivor, say your prayers and commend your soul to thedevil! You've driven me to bay, and I give you no quarter!'"

CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE FATAL SHOT

"Thank God, Una, " Jack cried, "you remember it now even better thanI do!"

"Remember it!" I answered, holding my brow with my hands to keep theflood of thought from bursting it to fragments. "Remember it! Why, it comes back to me like waves of fire and burns me. I rememberevery word, every act, every gesture. I lifted my head slowly, Jack, and looked over the screen at him. In the twilight, I saw himthere--the man I called my father--holding the bottle to your face, that wicked bottle of chloroform, with his revolver in one hand, anda calm smile like a fiend's playing hatefully and cruelly round thatgrave-looking mouth of his. I never saw any man look so ghastly inmy life. I was rooted to the spot with awe and terror. I daredhardly cry out or move. Yet I knew this was murder. He would killyou! He would kill you! He was trying to poison you before my veryeyes. Oh, heaven, how I hated him! He was no father of mine. He hadnever been my father. And he was murdering the man I loved best inthe world. For I loved you better than life, Jack! Oh, the strain ofit was terrible! I see it all now. I live it all over again. Withone wild bound I leapt forward, and, hardly knowing what I did, Ipressed the button, turned off the current from the battery, andrushed wildly upon him. I suppose the knob I pressed not onlyreleased you, but set the photographic machine at work automatically. But I didn't know it then. At any rate, I remember now, in theseconds that followed, flash came fast after flash. There was asudden illumination. The room was lighter than day. It grew alternatelybright as noon and then dark as pitch again by contrast. And by thelight of the flashes, I saw you, half-dazed with the chloroform, standing helpless there. 

"I rushed up and caught the man's arm. He was never my father! Hedropped the bottle and struggled hard for possession of the pistol. First he pointed it at you, then at me, then at you again. He meantto shoot you. I was afraid it would go off. With a terrible effort Itwisted his wrist awry, in the mad force of passion, and wrenchedthe revolver away from him. He jumped at my throat, still silent, but fierce like a tiger at bay. I eluded him, and sprang back. ThenI remember no more, except that I stood with the pistol pointed athim. Next, came a flash, a loud roar. And then, in a moment, thePicture. He lay dead on the floor in his blood. And my Second Statebegan. And from that day, for months, I was like a little childagain. "

Jack looked at me as I paused. 

"And then?" he went on in a very low voice, half prompting me. 

"And then all I can remember, " I said, "is how you got out of thewindow. But I didn't know when I saw you, it was you or anyone else. That was my Second State then. The shot seemed to end all. Whatcomes next is quite different. It belongs to the new world. There, my life stopped dead short and began all over again. "

There was a moments silence. Jack was the first to break it. 

"And now will you give yourself up to the police, Una?" he asked mequietly. 

The question brought me back to the present again with a bound. 

"Oh! what ought I to do?" I cried, wringing my hands. "I don't quiteknow all yet. Jack, why did you run away that last moment and leaveme?"

Jack took my hand very seriously. 

"Una, my child, " he said, fixing his eyes on mine, "I hardly knowwhether I can ever make you understand all that. I must ask you atfirst at least just simply to believe me. I must ask you to trust meand to accept my account. When you rushed upon me as I stood there, all entangled in that hateful apparatus, and unable to move, Ididn't know where you had been; I didn't know how you'd come there. But I felt sure you must have heard at least your false father'slast words--that he'd stifle me with the chloroform and burn mybody up afterwards to ashes with his chemicals. You seized thepistol before I could quite recover from the effects of the fumes. He lay dead at my feet before I realised what was happening. 

"Then, in a moment, as I looked at you, I took it all in, like aflash of lightning. I saw how impossible it would be ever toconvince anybody else of the truth of our story. I saw if we bothtold the truth, no one would ever believe us. There was no time thento reflect, no time to hesitate. I had to make up my mind at once toa plan of action, and to carry it out without a second's delay. Inone burst of inspiration, I saw that to stop would be to seal bothour fates. I didn't mind so much for myself; that was nothing, nothing: but for your sake I felt I must dare and risk everything. Then I turned round and looked at you. I saw at one glance thehorror of the moment had rendered you speechless and almostsenseless. The right plan came to me at once as if by magic. 'Una, 'I cried, 'stand back! Wait till the servants come!' For I knew thereport of the revolver would soon bring them up to the library. ThenI waited myself. As they reached the door, and forced it open, Ijumped up to the window. Just outside, my bicycle stood proppedagainst the wall. I let them purposely catch just a glimpse of myback--an unfamiliar figure. They saw the pistol on the floor, --Mr. Callingham dead--you, startled and horrified--a man unknown, escaping in hot haste from the window. I risked my own life, so asto save your name and honour. I let them see me escape, so as toexonerate you from suspicion. If they hanged me, what matter? Then Ileapt down in a hurry, jumped lightly on my machine, and rode offlike the wind down the avenue to the high-road. For a second or twothey waited to look at you and your father. That second or two savedus. By the time they'd come out to look, I was away down thegrounds, past the turn of the avenue, and well on for the high-road. They'd seen a glimpse of the murderer, escaping by the window. Theywould never suspect YOU. You were saved, and I was happy. "

"And for the same reason even now, " I said, "you wouldn't tell thepolice?"

"Let sleeping dogs lie, " Jack answered, in the same words as Dr. Marten. "Why rake up this whole matter? It's finished for ever now, and nobody but yourself is ever likely to reopen it. If we both toldour tale, we might run a great risk of being seriously misinterpreted. You know it's true; so do I: but who else would believe us? No man'sbound to criminate himself. You shot him to save my life, at the verymoment when you first learned all his cruelty and his vileness. Therest of the world could never be made to understand all that. They'dsay to the end, as it looks on the surface, 'She shot her father tosave her lover. '"

"You're right, " I said slowly. "I shall let this thing rest. But thephotographs, Jack--the apparatus--the affair of the inquest?"

"That was all very simple, " Jack answered. "For a day or two, ofcourse, I was in a frantic state of mind for fear you should besuspected, or the revolver should betray you. But though I saw theelectric sparks, of course, I knew nothing about the photographs. Iwasn't even aware that the apparatus took negatives automatically. And I was so full of the terrible reports in the newspapers aboutyour sudden loss of health, that I could think of nothingelse--least of all my own safety. As good luck would have it, however, the clergyman at Wrode, who knew the Wilsons, happened tospeak to me of the murder--all England called it the murder andtalked of nothing else for at least a fortnight, --and in the courseof conversation he mentioned this apparatus of Mr. Callingham'sconstruction. 'What a pity, ' he said, 'there didn't happen to be oneof them in the library at the time! If it was focussed towards thepersons, and had been set on by the victim, it would havephotographed the whole scene the murder, the murderer. '

"That hint revealed much to me. As he spoke, I remembered suddenlyabout those mysterious flashes when you burst all at once on mysight from behind the screen. Till that moment, I thought of themonly as some result of your too suddenly turning off the electriccurrent. But then, it came home to me in a second that Mr. Callingham must have set out his apparatus all ready forexperimenting--that the electric apparatus was there to put it inworking order. The button you turned must not only have stopped thecurrent that nailed me writhing to the spot: it must also have setworking the automatic photographic camera!

"That thought, as you may imagine, filled me with speechless alarm:for I remembered then that one of the flashes broke upon us at theexact moment when you fired the pistol. Such a possibility washorrible to contemplate. The photographs by themselves could give noclue to our conversation or to the events that compelled you, almostagainst your own will, to fire that fatal shot. If they were foundby the police, all would be up with both of us. They might hang MEif they liked: except for Elsie's sake, I didn't mind much aboutthat: but for your safety, come what might, I felt I must manage toget hold of them or to destroy them. 

"Were the negatives already in the hands of the police? That was nowthe great question. I read the reports diligently, with all theirdescriptions of the room, and noticed that while the table, thealcove, the screen, the box, the electrical apparatus, were allcarefully mentioned, not a word was said anywhere about thepossession of the negatives. Reasoning further upon the descriptionof the supposed murderer as given by the servants, and placardedbroadcast in every town in England, I came to the conclusion thatthe police couldn't yet have discovered the existence of thesenegatives: for some of them must surely have photographed my face, however little in focus; while the printed descriptions mentionedonly the man's back, as the servants saw him escaping from thewindow. The papers said the room was being kept closed till theinquest, for inspection in due time by the coroner's jury. I made upmy mind at once. When the room was opened for the jurors to view it, I must get in there and carry them off, if they caught me in theattempt. 

"It was no use trying before the jury had seen the room. But as soonas that was all over, I judged the strictness of the watch upon thepremises would be relaxed, and the windows would probably be openeda little to air the place. So on the morning of the inquest, I toldthe Wilsons casually I'd met you at Torquay and had therefore a sortof interest in learning the result of the coroner's deliberation. Then I took my bicycle, and rode across to Woodbury. Leaning up mymachine against the garden wall, I walked carelessly in at the gate, and up the walk to the library window, as if the place belonged tome. Oh, how my heart beat as I looked in and wondered! The foldinghalves were open, and the box stood on the table, still connectedwith the wires that conducted the electrical current. I stood andhesitated in alarm. Were the negatives still there, or had thepolice discovered them? If they were gone, all was up with you. Thegame was lost. No jury on earth, I felt sure, would believe mystory. 

"I vaulted up to the sill. Thank heaven, I was athletic. Not a soulwas about: but I heard a noise of muffled voices in the other roomsbehind. Treading cat-like across the floor, I turned the key in thelock. A chalk mark still showed the position of the pistol on theground exactly as you flung it. The box was on the table, and I sawat a glance, the wires which connected it with the battery had neverbeen disconnected. I was afraid of receiving a shock if I touchedthem with my hands, and I had no time to waste in discoveringelectrical attachments. So I pulled out my knife, and you can fancywith what trembling hands I cut that wire on either side andreleased the box from its dangerous connections. I knew only toowell the force of that current. Then I took the thing under my arm, leaped from the window once more, and ran across the shrubberytowards the spot where I'd left my bicycle. 

"On the way, the thought struck me that if I carried along thecamera, all would be up with me should I happen to be challenged. Itwas the only one of the sort in existence at the time, and the wiresat the side would at once suffice to identify it and to arouse thesuspicion even of an English policeman. I paused for a moment behinda thick clump of lilacs and tried to pull out the incriminatingnegatives. Oh, Una, I did it for your sake; but there, terrified andtrembling, in hiding behind the bushes, and in danger of my life, with that still more unspeakable danger for yours haunting me alwayslike a nightmare, can you wonder that for the moment I almost feltmyself a murderer? The very breezes in the trees made my heart givea jump, and then stand still within me. I got out the first two orthree plates with some trifling difficulty, for I didn't understandthe automatic apparatus then as I understand it now: but the fourthstuck hard for a minute; the fifth broke in two; and thesixth--well, the sixth plate baffled me entirely by getting jammedin the clockwork, and refusing to move, either backward or forward. 

"At that moment, I either heard or fancied I heard a loud noise ofpursuit, a hue and cry behind me. Zeal for your safety had made mepreternaturally nervous. I looked about me hurriedly, thrust thenegatives I'd recovered into my breast-pocket as fast as ever Icould, flung the apparatus away from me with the sixth plate jammedhard in the groove, and made off at the top of my speed for the wallbehind me. For there, at that critical point, it occurred to mesuddenly that the sixth and last flash of the machine had come andgone just as I stood poising myself on the ledge of the window-sill;and I thought to myself--rightly as it turned out--this additionalevidence would only strengthen the belief in the public mind thatMr. Callingham had been murdered by the man whom the servants sawescaping from the window. 

"The rest, my child, you know pretty well already. In a panic onyour account, I scrambled over the wall, tearing my hands as I wentwith that nasty-bottle glass, reached my bicycle outside, and madeoff, not for the country, but for the inn where they were holdingthe coroner's inquest. My left hand I had to hold, tied up in myhandkerchief to stop the bleeding, in the pocket of my jacket: but Ithought this the best way, all the same, to escape detection. And, indeed, instead of being, as I feared, the only man there inbicycling dress and knickerbockers, I found the occasion hadpositively attracted all the cyclists of the neighbourhood. Each manwent there to show his own innocence of fear or suspicion. A gooddozen or two of bicyclists stood gathered already in the body of theroom in the same incriminating costume. So I found safety innumbers. Even the servants who had seen me disappear through thewindow, though their eyes lighted upon me more than once, never fora moment seemed to suspect me. And I know very well why. When Istand up, I'm the straightest and most perpendicular man that everwalked erect. But when I poise to jump, I bend my spine so much thatI produce the impression of being almost hump-backed. It was thatattitude you recognised in me when I jumped from the window justnow. "

"Why, Jack, " I cried clinging to him in a perfect whirlwind ofwonder, "one can hardly believe it--that was only an hour ago!"

"That was only an hour ago, " Jack answered, smiling. "But as foryou, I suppose you've lived half a lifetime again in it. And now youknow the whole secret of the Woodbury Mystery. And you won't want togive yourself up to the police any longer. "

CHAPTER XXIV. 

ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

But why didn't you explain it all to me at the very first?" Iexclaimed, all tremulous. "When you met me at Quebec, I mean--whydidn't you tell me then? Did you and Elsie come there on purpose tomeet me?"

"Yes, we came there to meet you, " Jack answered. "But we were afraidto make ourselves known to you all at once just at first, because, you see, Una, I more than half suspected then, what I know now to bethe truth, that you were coming out to Canada on purpose to hunt meup, not as your friend and future husband, but in enmity andsuspicion as your father's murderer. And in any case we wereuncertain which attitude you might adopt towards me. But I see Imust explain a little more even now. I haven't told you yet why Icame at all to Canada. "

"Tell me now, " I answered. "I must know everything to-day. I cannever rest now till I've heard the whole story. "

"Well, " Jack went on more calmly, "after the first excitement woreoff in the public mind, there came after a bit a lull of languidinterest; the papers began to forget the supposed facts of themurder, and to dwell far more upon your own new role as apyschological curiosity. They talked much about your strange newlife and its analogies elsewhere. I was anxious to see you, ofcourse, to satisfy myself of your condition; but the doctors who hadcharge of you refused to let you mix for a while with anyone you hadknown in your First State; and I now think wisely. It was best youshould recover your general health and faculties by slow degrees, without being puzzled and distracted by constant upsettingrecollections and suggestions of your past history. 

"But for me, of course, at the time, the separation was terrible. Each morning, I read with feverish interest the reports of yourhealth, and longed, day after day, to hear of some distinctimprovement. And yet at the same time, I was terrified at everyapproach to complete convalescence: I feared that if you got betterat all, you might remember too quick, and that then the sudden rushof recollection might kill you or upset your reason. But by-and-by, it became clear to me you could remember nothing of the actual shotitself. And I saw plainly why. It was the firing of the pistol thatobliterated, as it were, every trace of your past life in yourdisorganised brain. And it obliterated ITSELF too. Your new lifebegan just one moment later, with the Picture of the dead manstretched before you in his blood on the floor, and a figure in thebackground disappearing through the window. "

How clever he was, to be sure! I saw in a moment Jack hadinterpreted my whole frame of mind correctly and wonderfully. 

"Well, I went back to Babbicombe, " Jack continued, "and, lest myheart should break for want of human sympathy, I confided every wordof my terrible story to Elsie. Elsie can trust me; and Elsiebelieved me. Gradually, as you began to recover, I realised thesoundness of your doctor's idea that you should be allowed to comeback to yourself by re-education from the very beginning, withoutany too early intrusion of reminiscences from your previous life toconfuse and disturb you. But I couldn't go on with my profession, all the same, while I waited. I couldn't attend as I ought to mypatients' wants and ailments: I was too concentrated upon you: thestrain was too great upon me. So I threw up my practice, came out toCanada, bought a bit of land, and began farming here, and seeing afew patients now and again locally, just to fill up my time with. Ifelt confident in the end you would recover and remember me. I feltconfident you would come to yourself and marry me. But still, it wasvery long work waiting. Every month, Elsie got news indirectly fromMinnie Moore or someone of your state of health; and I intended togo back and try to see you as soon as ever you were in a conditionto bear the shock of re-living your previous life again. 

"Unfortunately, however, the police got hold of YOU before I couldcarry my plan into execution. As soon as I heard that, I made up mymind at once to go home by the first mail and break it all gently toyou. So Elsie and I started for Quebec, meaning to sail by theDominion steamer for England. But at the hotel at Quebec we saw thetelegrams announcing that you were then on your way out to Canada. Well, of course we didn't feel sure whether you came as a friend oran enemy. We were certain it was to seek me out you were coming toAmerica; but whether you remembered me still and still loved me, orwhether you'd found out some stray clue to the missing man, and wereanxious to hunt me down as your father's murderer, we hadn't theslightest conception. So under those circumstances, we thought itbest not to meet you ourselves at the steamer, or to reveal ouridentity too soon, for fear of a catastrophe. I knew it would bebetter to wait and watch--to gain your confidence, if possible--inany case, to find out how you were affected on first seeing us andtalking with us. 

"Well then, as the time came on for the Sarmatian to arrive, itbegan to strike me by degrees that all Quebec was agog withcuriosity to see you. I dared not go down to meet you at the quaymyself; but the Chief Constable of Quebec, Major Tascherel, was anold friend and fellow-officer of my father's; and when I explainedto him my fears that you might be mobbed by sightseers on yourarrival at the harbour, and told him how afraid I was of the shockit might give you to meet an old friend unexpectedly at thesteamer's side, he very kindly consented to go down and see you safethrough the Custom House, It was so lucky I knew him. If it hadn'tbeen for that, you might have been horribly inconvenienced. 

"As you may imagine, when we first saw you get into the Pullman car, both Elsie and I felt our hearts come up into our months withsuspense and anxiety. We'd arranged it all so on purpose, for wefelt sure you were on your way to Palmyra to find us: but when itcame to the actual crisis, we wondered most nervously what effectthe sight of us might have upon your system. But in a moment, I sawyou didn't remember us at all, or only vaguely attached to us somefaint sense of friendliness. That was well, because it enabled us togain your confidence easily. As we spoke with you, the sense offriendly interest deepened. I knew that, all unconsciously toyourself, you loved me still, and that in a very short time, if onlyI could see you and be with you, I might bring all back to you. "

Jack paused and looked at me. As he paused, I felt my old selfrevive again more completely than ever with a rush. 

"Oh, Jack, " I cried, "so you HAVE done; so you HAVE brought all backto me! My Second State's over: I'm the same girl you used to know atTorquay once more. I remember everything--everything--such aworld--such a lifetime! I feel as if my head would burst with allthe things I remember. I don't know what to do with it. I'm sotired, so weary. "

"Lay it here, " Jack said simply. 

And I laid it on his shoulder, just as I used to do years ago, andcried so long in silence, and was ever so much comforted. For I'veadmitted all along that I'm only a woman. 

There we sat, hand in hand, for many minutes more, saying neveranother word, but sympathising silently, till Elsie returned fromPalmyra. 

When she burst into the room, she called out lightly as she entered:

"Well, I've got you your lemon, Una, and I do hope--" Then she brokeshort suddenly. "Oh, Jack, " she cried, faltering, and half guessingthe truth, "what's the meaning of this? Why, Una's been crying. Youbad boy, you've been frightening her. I oughtn't to have left herten minutes alone with you!"

Jack rose and held up his hand in warning. 

"Don't talk to her at present, Elsie, " he said. "You needn't beafraid. Una's found out everything. She remembers all now. And sheknows how everything happened. And she's borne it so bravely, without any more shock to her health and strength than wasabsolutely inevitable. --Let her sleep if she can. It'll do her somuch good. --But, Elsie, there's one thing I want to say to you bothbefore I hand her over to you. After all that's happened, I don'tthink Una'll want to hear that hateful name of Callingham any more. It never was really hers, and it never shall be. We'll let bygonesbe bygones in every other respect, and not rake up any details ofthat hateful story. But she's been Una to us always, and she shallbe Una still. It's a very good name for her: for there's only one ofher. But next week, I propose, she shall be Una Ivor. "

I threw myself on his neck, and cried again like a child. 

"I accept, Jack, " I said, sobbing. "Let it be Ivor, if you will. Next week, then, I'll be your wife at last, my darling!"