ph,
however, was short-lived. He was well on the road, even then, to his
subsequent commercial success; a good deal of the wresting had been
accomplished; but the girl he had steadfastly loved, whom he had never
for one instant put out of his thoughts, had married his rival.

To get together most of her report Genevieve had been obliged to labor
patiently and painstakingly; when it came to the events associated with
Felix Page's return to his birth-place, her task was suddenly
transformed from one of gleaning to another equally arduous, of
selecting from the plethora of material at her disposal.

One gathers the idea, after reading it all, that his rage was that of a
cave-man who returns from the day's hunt to find that his home in the
hillside cliff has been despoiled. One thing stands out clear and
unmistakable; from that hour his life was embittered, his character
warped with the shattering of his ideals. He registered a solemn vow
of vengeance against Alfred Fluette, then disappeared.

So much for this portion of the report. Nothing in the subsequent
relations of the two men was now obscure.

And here, too, we are given a new light upon Alexander Burke, oiling
door-hinges that he might the better spy upon his employer, patiently
working out the combination of the hidden safe and running to Alfred
Fluette with the old love-letters and mementos--for a price, of
course,--playing the vindictiveness of the one against the hatred and
fear of the other, and scrupling not to gain profit for himself
whenever and wherever he might.

But it is proverbial that a woman invariably reserves the most
interesting and important item for the postscript. And it was so with
Genevieve's report. I quote the concluding paragraphs _in toto_.

On the very first day of my arrival, and from the very first person to
whom I confided the nature of my errand, I received the surprising
intelligence that I was not the first to pursue similar inquiries in
Merton. Said my informant: "Why, there was a man here two or three
weeks ago, trying to find out all he could about the Pages and the
Coopers and the Fluettes. Has some one of them died and left a lot of
money?"

I did not think so much of it the first time, but when my second victim
told me the same thing, I sat up and began to take notice. Then I
extended my inquiries so as to cover my mysterious predecessor.

I soon found out that he had ingratiated himself with everybody in