ption.
Let me be forgotten by all the world, forgiven by one alone."

The two friends long gazed at each other in a gloomy silence.

"I leave the whole mystery to you, my friend," at last wearily said
the lawyer. "I will never try to read between the lines. Take the
whole correspondence with you. I have already had a copy made of
the Vice-Consul's letter and Ferris' own few sentences. I know that
Alice will surely consecrate this vile money to some good purpose,
and so I make you my ambassador.

"She will understand why I hope never to hear Ferris' name again,
for I know and feel that he was a murderer at heart. Had Clayton
missed the snares of the deadly thug who coveted the money which
was so criminally exposed, for the golden bribe of the Worthington
fortune, Ferris would have sacrificed the only man who stood between
him and the millionaire's favor, between him and, perhaps, this
orphaned girl's hand.

"And, as sure as the sinner errs, so sure is that old proverb, 'THE
WAGES OF SIN IS DEATH!'

"I will simply forward any further Amoy enclosures to Miss Worthington
for her own action. The drama is done, the curtain has fallen, and
the lights are turned out forever!"

Mr. and Mrs. John Witherspoon were enjoying the delights of a
Continental run a year later, when that bright-eyed young matron,
Madame Francine, read to her delighted husband the account given by
Miss Worthington of the opening of the "Free Hospital and Orphans'
Home," to which the young heiress had dedicated the estate of the
unfortunate Ferris, as well as a large sum set aside by herself.

The Witherspoons were in the far niente, floating on the Grand
Canal in beautiful Venice, while the young beauty selected Alice's
letter from a sheaf handed to them by the porter of the Hotel
Danieli, who pursued them in a gondola.

The married lovers were now on their way to the Nile and the eternal
glow of its cloudless skies.

Witherspoon listened with a mock gravity, until he suddenly
interrupted, "What does she say of Atwater?"

"Nothing," answered the merry matron. "It's all about the grand
opening of the Home."

"Then, IT'S ALL RIGHT!" calmly answered Jack, lighting a cigar
and leaning back under the parti-colored awning. "When a woman
says nothing about a man, it's surely all right. I can wait, wait
patiently, till her philanthropic fever abates. I suppose that we
will hear something at the First Cataract, or at Khartoum, or some
other remo